preston rawlings . {viola} (theviola) wrote in musingslogs, @ 2011-06-19 15:38:00 |
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Entry tags: | iron man, viola |
Who: Anton and Preston
What: Consultations and drinking on the job.
Where: Sparke Industries Seattle Offices
When: SO backdated, during this, which took place quite some time before the Black Pearl Shindig.
Warnings: Mild language, perhaps.
Note: I just realized this was never posted. I blame Jeannie.
Anton was pretty good about making swift decisions that were frowned upon by most. It was a good thing he was preoccupied when Max showed up or else he’d already be on board with the project and Preston would be even worse off. He didn’t know what was going on, but he was pretty sure he was about to find out.
He didn’t think Preston would take long getting to his office but he got up and went over to his wet bar anyway and started pouring drinks, because he had a feeling this was Scotch conversation. When his office door opened he held one of the glasses out immediately, “This is better than wine Wednesdays.”
Preston usually frowned on Anton drinking during the business day. It was hard enough to get the man to show up on time to meetings and similar affairs, and when he was half-drunk things tended to get interesting in a bad way. Preston was also of the opinion that Anton drank too much, and he tried not to encourage him.
Today, obviously, was an exception.
Preston took the drink and collapsed more than sat in one of the leather chairs. At first glance he was fine, well put together in his unwrinkled linen suit, but once you got a look at the strain on his eyes and mouth, it dispelled the carefully cultivated illusion immediately. He was looking at the phone in his hand. “They say that’s not what they intended.” He gave Anton a helpless, confused look, which was quite the reversal.
Anton moved to the front of his desk and leaned against it looking at Preston and sighed before he took a drink from his own glass. His brow furrowed in concern and he nodded, “Do you believe them?” he asked simply.
“I don’t know. They do things they think are for the best. They have lied to me before. But there are threats worse than Shiloh... I... I don’t know.” He just sat there and forgot to drink.
Anton nodded, he supposed Preston wouldn’t have his head screwed on too straight so he did his best to be level headed. Which was a role reversal he wasn’t too pleased with at the moment. “Everyone does things that they think are for the best. But the road to hell is paved with good intentions, Preston. We all know that. And I don’t know what your brother did, or why they’d want to lock him up, but yes generally I’m sure there are worse things out there. I know there are.”
He took another drink and sat his glass down next to him and folded his arms across his chest where he stood, “Well we can do anything here, Preston. We can buy the place and wait and see. If they’re on the level then we’re in business, I’ll even sell it back to them, but if they’re not on the level we say fuck them and go about our business. They can’t seriously think this is going to solve all the world’s problems.”
“If you buy it, they won’t use it. They have this idea that if there are more people owning it it’s public property. Typical of people who don’t work with as many lawyers as we do.” Preston turned the glass in his hands, uncertain. Max and Gw--Oracle said that this would interfere, but his impulse was to protect Shiloh.
“Fuck that, it’s a building not public property. If they’re that worried about it then they need to get funding from the state. So why don’t I buy the place and if all goes according to plan I donate it back to the state for it’s use? I don’t particularly feel comfortable with the three richest assholes in town owning it either, there’s something called controlling interest and if Brandon, Monarch and myself have equal controlling interest in something like that it opens all of us up to a legal mess when something goes wrong. Which it will.” Anton was just throwing around ideas, but anything was better than seeing Preston freaked out if he could do something about it.
“Yes, it will.” Preston hadn’t thought about liability. He was too torn up about Shiloh and the soft, niggling idea that maybe the masks were right, and maybe Shiloh couldn’t be trusted to control his ability if this was how he used it. “I don’t know... I can’t tell. I don’t want them to threaten Shiloh, but--I don’t want the masks against me, either. They’re not good enemies to have.”
“Preston, I want to help,” he said moving over to the other chair and sitting down next to him. “We can figure this out, but screw the masks Preston. They’ve got no reason to be against you, I don’t think they’re in the business of threatening upstanding citizens such as yourself. If it’s your brother they have issue with, then we’ll do what we can to look after him. Tell me what you want me to do here, and I’ll do it. If we go with their plan, stick our necks out, and they go after your brother then we’ll keep them from doing whatever it is they want to do to him. If you want me to buy the property and hold it hostage until they see things our way, we can do that too. Let me help.”
Preston chewed on his lower lip, turning to watch out of the corner of his eye as Anton moved nearer. He wasn't sure what was right, but he calmed down significantly over the last couple dinging notifications from the phone. He put the phone down on one knee and stretched sideways so he could reach into a pocket for his lighter. Preston hadn't smoked in front of Anton for almost five years. "We could still withdraw support if they move against Shiloh, regardless of what they promise."
“We could,” he answered simply. “And we will if that’s what you want. Preston, we don’t have to do anything. If I say no I’m just some asshole and I’m alright with that. But if we go forward we’re only going forward if you feel comfortable with it.”
Preston took too deep of a drink and coughed as the liquor hit a throat rubbed raw with too many cigarettes. He started the process of lighting one, obviously forgetting about the fire alarm. "If you were going to help them with the buy..." He rubbed his forehead. "I'm worried about Shiloh, maybe I'm overreacting to this whole thing."
Anton had done much worse things in his office besides smoking, he even stood up and grabbed an ashtray from the wet bar and brought it back to him. “Who cares?” he said honestly with a bit of a shrug. “So you’re overreacting. It’s your brother, you have every reason to overreact. I’m not judging you. But if we do sign up for this one...There’s going to have to be a lot more than some leggy reporter giving me and her word that this is a good idea. Look, think it over. We have until Monday. You let me know what you’re comfortable with and we’ll do that. I don’t care what it is. And this isn’t me throwing my decisions off on you as per usual,” he said with a bit of a smile. “Tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do it. This is important.” Giving Preston blank checks for the latest cause, offering every doctor in the world for his nephew’s medical care, deciding the fate of Creation related crime...There wasn’t another person in the world he’d go out on a limb for. “It’s going to be alright. The ball is in our court, we can fix this any way we want to.”
This was usually the moment that Preston advised caution, in which Anton got carried away with his emotions, sometimes generosity, and sometimes... whatever that happy-go-lucky attitude was called. However, Preston just gave him a wavering smile, and then he tipped over his phone to show Oracle’s latest message, which said she expected they would all be responsible adults. “She obviously doesn’t know us very well.” Preston took in a breath of smoke which seemed to stabilize him. “Thanks,” he said, referring to the ashtray. Preston leaned over his knees and rubbed a temple. “Take part in the sale. As long as you’re of equal interest, we can act at any time.”
Anton looked at the phone and he snorted a bit, of all the ridiculousness. “No, she obviously doesn’t. But we can fake it for a while.” He listened to the suggestion and nodded. “Alright, we’ll both keep our eye on things and hopefully this will go as planned and everything will be just fine.” He sat back in his chair and sighed. “You hungry? Want to order something in and you can help me pick out a car?” he said trying to be cheery despite the situation.
That made Preston sit back with a disbelieving little laugh. It wasn’t much of a laugh, but it was there. “You just bought a car last month. Or did you crash it already out in... wherever you were?” He slid off the chair and stood up, unfolding to his full height stiffly. “Order something. I’m going to call Shiloh, and I’ll be right back.” He smiled fondly down at his oldest friend, stifled another thanks, and forgot not to stare.
Anton was glad to hear the laugh, “I didn’t crash it, but I think I’m going to sell it. I don’t like it. And I was in the Domincan!” he said feigning some kind of offense that Preston wouldn’t remember. “I think I sent a postcard!” He smiled his most charming smile at Preston, though for Preston it was at least genuine not like the rest of the damn world. “Alright, I hope everything is alright with him, let me know if there’s anything I can do.” He felt like something had been accomplished, he’d been able to help at least a little.
That damn smile was the bane of Preston’s existence. Anton threw it around like a rich man might dole out shiny pennies, probably in the assumption that it would lose its effect eventually. Preston tried to pretend that it did, but it never really worked. He was good at countering it after so many years, however. Looking away, he stepped back and nodded at the same time across the distance. “All this generosity is becoming. Should I get used to it, or is it a passing phase?”
Anton wasn’t entirely sure how to answer that question, if he was honest he’d probably just keep throwing whatever he could at Preston, but he didn’t know how to put that into words. He just chuckled and shrugged a little, “Well I’m not buying you a car so I’m not that generous, but if you want the other one you can have it,” he said giving him a thumbs up.
Preston laughed. It was a better one this time. “I can’t think how I could possibly look more stupid than in one of your flashy cars,” he said, truthfully. “Sell it, if you’re tired of it. You get tired of them all eventually, you know.” Preston tossed off the last of the drink, and then, trailing smoke, he wandered over to a corner to dial his brother.
Anton looked him over for a moment, he had to disagree. “I think you could rock it Preston, you’ve got that undercover bad ass thing going for you,” he eventually decided on. He got up from his chair and went over to his desk to try and find some kind food to order. He ordered enough take out he had a drawer full of menus. Maybe Thai food. He wondered if they should go out. Get the hell out of this office. Preston was on the phone so he grabbed a couple of menus and figured he’d ask what he wanted to do before deciding to order a metric ton of pad thai to get delivered.
Preston snorted as the phone rang. He didn’t ‘rock’ anything. After a short conversation that only shook him worse, rather than reassuring, he hung up and slid the phone into his pocket. Without thinking, he returned to the chair he’d been in before, remembering just in time to ash his cigarette before it ended up on the carpet. “I don’t know how it ended up like this, Anton. Is it Seattle? Me? Shiloh?”
Anton was half sitting on his desk looking at the food menus and he looked concerned when Preston sat back down. “I think that we’ve all reached our quota for fucked up, Preston. Things literally get worse all the time. I don’t know what it is. But it isn’t you, and I’m sure it isn’t Shiloh. It’s probably fucking everything. We should all go to the Dominican. Screw this place. But we’re gonna fix it. I swear.” He didn’t know how, but he knew that he needed to one or another.
“I don’t think we can fix this place. I’m not even sure I can run from it. What you are isn’t something you can run from, I think. All this... it might just come with what we are. Of course they want a jail for us.” Preston was pushing at his temples again. “Of course they do. They’re just going to wait for one of us to screw up, to do something they don’t like...”
Anton didn’t like being told “no.” He didn’t accept that he couldn’t fix anything he wanted to damn well fix. Sure that might be illogical but that was why he had Preston. His eyebrows furrowed frustratedly and he waved his hand. “Which is why we’ll keep our eye on it and make sure that people aren’t getting power hungry. I sure as hell don’t want to be in charge of anyone’s collective fate just because they screw up. I do things people don’t like all the time.” He smiled a bit playfully, “God it’s painful being so level headed. How do you manage? You want to get out of here? I don’t want be in this office anymore, let’s go eat.”
Preston didn’t think it was very likely that food was going to make his outlook any better, but it was a harmless solution and one that would at least make things no worse. “Alright,” he said, at the end of a sigh, stabbing his cigarette out. He’d just have to listen to everything the vigilantes did, try to keep tabs on whatever they talked about. Preston shook his head. Not enough hours in the days that were getting shorter. He looked at Anton sideways and stood up, willing to go for the distraction, at least for now.