Who: Drake and Rome What: Retrieving a sibling from a coffee shop during a snowstorm. Where: Reliquary. When: After this conversation. Warnings: None.
The weather had already worsened by the time Drake left his apartment, which made driving tricky enough even without the added anger that spiked every time he thought about Rome wandering around the city while the temperature continued to drop. He’d done his best to make it clear that the kid was welcome to stay for as long as he wanted; he hadn’t said a word about his Noise, not even when the nightmares kept both of them awake at night, and he didn’t particularly enjoy waking up to find that his brother was gone without so much as a note left behind. Hamartia was barely adequate in the best of circumstances and no family of his was going to be staying in some homeless shelter if he had anything to say about it.
After a drive full of loud horns, extensive cursing, and a few incidents of screeching brakes he finally made it to Reliquary and made his way to the front entrance. Demanding that Rome stay with him probably wasn’t the best way to go, though Drake hadn’t yet figured out what he was going to do if he asked and the boy refused. Whatever. He’d come up with something.
“Rome?” He pushed the door open with restrained calm, nudging it shut with his heel once he’d slipped inside.
Rome had no concept that he’d done anything wrong. He had left Drake’s possessions intact, which was not simply a mark of respect but rather one of generosity. To Rome, the opportunity to take was not one to pass up, and survival was one of Rome’s primary drives. His nightmares were of monsters in the dark, of the things that were his disappearing from his possession, and of hands after him. The last memories, the rarer and the louder, might have been his or the girl’s, it was impossible to tell. Sometimes his shouts were of anger, and sometimes of fear, and they would come suddenly. He never wanted to talk afterward, and his thoughts were always very clear on that. His confidence that Drake would not hurt him never wavered, however, and there had been no prelude to his departure.
Vague sleepy sounds--Rome’s thoughts when he was half-awake, utterly identifiable as unique to him--greeted Drake’s entrance. Not hungry, is good food here, warm... who is it? Where’s my bag? (Rome always wanted to know where his bag was when he was asleep and when he was waking, as if it has his life in it. Which it nearly did. He pulled all manner of strange things out of it, things like a toothbrush and badly repaired sweatshirts, and once a rusty pocket knife that he used to pry a can open.)
Rome’s head popped up over the edge of a wing-backed chair, an antique from one of Eli’s sellers. Drake, it’s Drake. Is it still snowing? He grinned a slightly yellow grin.
What Drake noticed first was that the shop was practically empty, followed by a recognition of Rome’s thoughts which brought palpable relief even before his head appeared over the chair. He’d been momentarily worried that maybe he hadn’t been fast enough, that Eli might not have been able to keep Rome from leaving; he was glad that wasn’t the case. “Yeah, it is.” He rubbed a hand across his forehead and tried to return his grin with mediocre success. Whatever else he did, Drake was determined not to start off by yelling. “Eli told me you’ve got a job,” he offered, deciding to ease his way onto the topic of Rome disappearing without a word.
Rome’s eyes slid away to look out the window and then came back to Drake’s face. Still cold. Not good for the guys on the street, he thought. A job? Rome repeated, puzzled, head tipping slightly as he got up to his feet to greet his brother. Oh, (understanding,) No, not a job. He gave me some twenties to sweep the floor, which I did, no problem. He seemed cool with it. Rome shrugged modestly, eyes twitching over to the corner, where the broom leaned in a place of honor next to a heap of various debris. There wasn’t a dustpan in sight. He said he owed you one. Did you save his life, or something?
“It should start warming up soon,” Drake said with a shrug, even though the thought about guys on the street probably hadn’t been directed at him. All he really had was the word of a mask who called himself Spider-Man that the Weatherman would be stopped, but it was better than nothing. EIT had enough to deal with and Fawkes seemed a little too extreme for a guy whose emotions messed with the weather. “You sure it’s just a one-time thing?” He stepped forward when Rome stood, fighting back a smile. He and Eli didn’t always see eye-to-eye but there was no denying that he was a good man. “A few times, yeah. Eli’s more of an intellectual, you know? Not so good when things get physical.” He paused for a moment. “Where were you planning on going after this?”
Snow in summer. It’s just weird. Probably someone with a messed-up ability or something, Rome commented to himself as he moved around the antique chair and put his hip against a tea table so he could address Drake directly. About Eli he said, Yeah, he looks like a smart guy. School and stuff. Rome generally had negative reactions to people with too much education, but Eli had given him food and, repeatedly, money. Rich, too. It must be nice to have a rich guy owe you. He smirked at Drake. I dunno, I don’t really make plans. Depends on how cold it gets.
“Probably.” Drake didn’t particularly feel like going into detail about who was behind it and why, at least not now. There was no denying Eli was smart, though maybe not to the extent that he gave himself credit for, but rich got a skeptical look in response. “Sure, he’s smart. Never lets me forget it. But Eli’s more generous than he is rich.” Otherwise his wages would’ve been a lot higher than they currently were. Most of the ‘favors’ he was owed were used when Drake wanted to use methods or tactics that Eli might not have agreed with normally. “Look, even if the weather improves you’ll still need somewhere decent to stay,” he began. “I don’t know why you took off, but you know you’re welcome to stay with me, right? I don’t mind.”
Rome’s concept of ‘rich’ was different than Drake’s. Far different, in fact. He carries around twenties, was the younger Wallace’s response, though from the distracted ‘sound’ of it, it wasn’t actually addressed in argument. Talking with Rome was like putting up with an echo to every sentence you said. For example, he looked up into Drake’s eyes with doubt as he continued to speak. He’s just being nice. Everybody minds. People in your house cost money, and I’m Loud all the time. You don’t have to say that, Rome thought/said, the last the only part meant to be ‘said.’
Luckily Drake clued in before mentioning that everyone carried around twenties, which likely wasn’t true from Rome’s point of view. It was instinct to respond to everything the kid thought but he was starting to realize that not everything was actually directed towards him. “That’s not how it is, Rome. I wouldn’t say you could stay if I didn’t mean it.” That wasn’t true all the time, but Drake wasn’t one of those people who constantly sought to spare the feelings of others and thus only said what he thought they’d want to hear. “Look, it’s fine if you don’t want to or you’d rather stay somewhere else. I’d get that,” he shrugged, trying to play off the possibility as casually as he could. “But your Noise isn’t that bad once you have a chance to get used to it, and you’re one person, not people.”
Rome couldn’t imagine why Drake would say any of this if he didn’t mean it, which meant he was trying to think what the other man could possibly gain from Rome’s presence. He was coming up blank. You don’t get used to it. It never turns off. If you don’t hate it now you will soon, Rome thought/said, with a shrewd, knowing glint in his muddy blue eyes that came from experience alone.
A couple of days listening to Rome’s ‘Noise’ obviously wasn’t the same as having to deal with it for weeks or even months, but Drake figured it would be like having the TV on constantly; sooner or later he’d barely even hear it at all. The tricky part was avoiding the crossover into ‘but we’re family’ territory and making it seem like an obligation. “Just because some people ended up hating it doesn’t mean I will,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “I’ve spent a lot of time in some pretty noisy places over the years. Trust me, I can handle what you’ve got.” He leaned against an adjacent table, pausing to ensure what he’d just said didn’t sound like begging. That and issuing orders were two things he wanted to avoid.
Eventually I'm going to think something he doesn't like and he'll want me to leave and not come back. Or the dreams, the dreams must be loud. What if I do something wrong? Rome shifted awkwardly around the chair, casually running his eyes over the available wares, wondering aloud at the prices to calm himself. It was also an obvious tactic to derail his thoughts before they got too revealing. I could come hang sometimes?
It wasn’t easy to keep himself from responding to Rome’s thoughts, but Drake realized only the last was actually directed towards him. He could talk for hours but there was no guarantee that his reassurances would eliminate Rome’s doubts. Maybe he was expecting too much, too soon. “Alright,” he relented. “You can come hang sometimes, but my offer still stands if you ever want to take it.” There was a fair amount of trust involved, but Drake didn’t think Rome would take anything and saw no reason for heightened levels of suspicion. “Until then, this floor looks clean enough to me. Want to get out of here?”
That made Rome relax a little bit, and he reoriented to face Drake with an obvious pique of cheerful attention. Yeah, okay. Where will we go? It’s really cold out still. We can go to the mall, they heat it and they let you stay until they close. You should get a sandwich before we leave, they’re good here.
Drake wondered how many times Rome had hung around in heated malls until closing for lack of anywhere else to go, but that wasn’t something he would ever even consider asking. “Sure. The mall’s a good enough place to be in a snowstorm.” Rome’s thought would likely indicate what he needed or wanted, which would be useful if the kid did end up staying with him at some point. “Alright,” he agreed, even though he’d had countless sandwiches from Reliquary in the past. “One sandwich and then we’ll take off.”