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Travis Marks (travis_marks) wrote in omega_reality,
@ 2012-10-22 19:53:00

Entry tags:

*complete, 2012 10, character: douglas hammond, character: thomas hammond, character: travis marks

RP: The Trio in Pittsbourgh
Who: Doug, Travis and TJ
Where: their house
When: October 22, 2012
Summary: Travis goes over money, jobs and training.

Travis had spent the past two nights going to work with TJ so that TJ could drive him back. During the day, they still trained and did all the things that they needed to do, but now it was time for more rules. Travis didn't like rules, but unfortunately with two men who'd never had to survive, rules were inevitable, even more so when Doug got a phone call saying that he'd gotten one of the jobs that he'd interviewed for and he was to start the next morning.

"Okay, guys, can we talk?" he said, sitting at the table and waiting for the other two to join him. "There are a few things that you need to be aware of, and I don't mean just training. First thing, money. We had ten thousand when we left. Twenty-five hundred went for the rent, we spent another fifteen hundred, with the trip, the hotel, the bridges, gas, food, the piano, range costs. We're also going to have to dip into the pool for this month's rent. I'm only going to make a thousand this month. Doug's job is-"

"Six hundred a week," Doug answered. "I'll use head of household with three dependents, that would minimize taxes, but we're still looking at about four seventy per week... and God, that's depressing."

Travis smiled a little. "I know, but that brings us to about eight seventy a week. With three and some weeks, we can cover all the expenses and we put a little on the side to start getting that ten thousand back. Just in case we need to move again, but we need to keep expenses down to a minimum. Doug, it's about two, three miles to work. If you walk down to Liberty and 11th, you're on the free zone, and that saves us five dollars a day in bus. That's only a mile."

Doug nodded. "Right, walk and public transportation." Why were they doing this again? Oh yes, independence.

Travis turned to TJ. "I know I said we're not rushing you, but have you looked at something? Did you check out downstairs? I know it's not much, but whatever we can save is good since we'll be out more than half of what we had by the end of the month."

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hammond_tj
2012-10-22 01:54 am UTC (link)

"Downstairs?" TJ asked, honestly perplexed. From the way Travis brought it up, he was sure it was probably not something he shouldn't know. But, for the life of him he couldn't recall what was downstairs that he should have looked at. Although, honestly, he didn't have much in the way of an answer for the rest of the inquiry, either. Sure, he could talk his way around things like not having a real educational or employment background of which to speak. But, he didn't really have the skills to back the fast talking up, not unless he seriously counted things like mixing drinks and having sex. Even his actual business experience was limited to ventures like the club.

"There's a place Downtown I was going to check out," he went on. "But, it's a bartending gig, so nights, probably the same time you're working." And he didn't want to leave Travis on his own getting home until they were sure he had those headaches under control.

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travis_marks
2012-10-22 02:01 am UTC (link)

Travis looked at TJ, with an amused smile. "Downstairs, the coffee shop, morning hours, part-time, any of that rings a bell?" he asked.

Doug snorted. "You probably lost him at the morning hours."

"Of course I did," Travis answered, chuckling. "It doesn't matter, though. Our hours will be all over the place, so if you want to check out that bartending job, then go for it. We'll figure out the hours and how to deal with the car. Transportation at night sucks, but whoever ends earlier can take the car and pick up the other. We also have to figure out how to do training, especially with Doug working days. I'll come with you tomorrow."

"I think I can go to work by myself. I stopped having a babysitter when Dad left the White House," Doug answered.

"I know, but we'll check out different routes, different buses and subways, figure out problematic spots," he said, "and we can come earlier and TJ can check out this place of his."

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hammond_tj
2012-10-22 02:23 am UTC (link)

Frowning, TJ tried to remember a conversation about the coffee shop and a job. But, he couldn't come up with anything. He concluded it must have been one of those rambling conversations where they'd talked about so much it was nearly impossible to remember everything. Strangely, those conversations happened a lot with Travis. "Ha. Ha. Not all of us feel the need to be up in time to catch the five o'clock morning news. Sleep is a good thing."

Sitting back in his chair with a shrug, he rested his elbow on the back of it. "I can always look at both. Part-time at either one won't yield much more than half of Doug's office job from what the guys at that party were saying. If the hours are early enough at the coffee shop, I can pull shifts right after the bartending job like a normal work day."

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travis_marks
2012-10-22 02:39 am UTC (link)

"Seven o'clock is not that early," Doug said, rolling his eyes. "And I'm sorry that the world still runs before ten am."

Travis just shook his head. These two had their own language, their own way of speaking to each other and he was sure that no one else got to say half the crap they said to each other without a major argument.

"Coffee shop, you're looking at minimum wage probably, seven twenty-five an hour, maybe seven fifty. I'm going to see if I can add another day at work, or find some other place to add a day or two, but as much as I'd like to get the ten grants back, I'm more interested in having time to train. You're going to have to pick, TJ. Day or night, you either train with me or with Doug. I can't have you not train, both the guns and the gym. Jobs are good; training is a lot more necessary when we go back." Although if they settled here, he wasn't sure the two brothers would want to go. "We also need to be careful with powers. Mine started at the beginning of the month, and you guys arrived two weeks after me."

"Are we on any type of time table?" Doug asked. "Do we know how they develop, any symptoms, anything other than the headaches?"

Travis shook his head. "From what I was told people develop powers at different rates with different symptoms. Some are more hidden, like my headache, some people go on fire, like Savannah. If you feel there's anything wrong, either you are feeling weird or things don't seem right, you come home and call me. Guy, you aren't cops or trained agents, but you have good instincts. You've lived looking for the catch, so I know that you can figure things out even when there's no proof that something is going on. Your gut tells you something is weird, you come here until we can figure it out, okay?"

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hammond_tj
2012-10-22 03:57 am UTC (link)

"Not if we're talking bedtimes. No, it's not early," TJ said with a smirk.

"Why don't we wait to start talking the need for decisions until I've had a chance to see what hours and pay actually are instead of working off guesses and what we did at the Dome to save money?" he suggested as Travis went on. He was going to have to work two part-time jobs just to make close to what Doug made full-time or what Travis was making in one part-time job. Otherwise, he'd be the useless one...again...because a single part-time job in something he could do was going to be less than nothing.

But, he was more concerned about powers, Travis' in particular. "Anyway, right now, one of us still needs to be able to pick you up for awhile. We might need to be on guard for ours coming through. But, you still need time to adjust to one that's already here...without crashing that monstrosity you call a car," he added, teasing but only about the car part. He'd been at the club with Travis every night since it first happened and the headache wasn't a one time occurrence.

TJ really didn't like and wasn't good at this part where he was the one worried about other people.

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travis_marks
2012-10-22 04:16 am UTC (link)

"Yeah, none of us is going to bed at dawn. Everything closes at two am around here," he said, chuckling. It was the only good thing in fact. No matter how late they worked, they'd be home before three, which helped. If they had to deal with the four am closing time in New York, things would be very different.

Travis almost said that two jobs wouldn't work, but he letting them do their thing when it came to jobs and nodded, instead. "All right, you look, figure out schedules and money and then we see depending with training schedule."

He leaned over and brushed TJ's cheek. "I'm going to be fine, okay? It is getting better, and if I drove that first night, I'll manage by the end of the week. I'm not going to crash the car, since I know how much you like it."

Doug didn't say anything at the gesture, but he kept his eyes on TJ, wondering how they had gone from 'not interested' to fucking to this. God, his brother worked so fast to give him whiplash.

"I do want to keep a schedule with both gun and rifles, plus alternating weights and aerobic exercise," Travis continued. "We'll just have to do defense when I'm around, but I've shown you the basics. You can do those without me around."

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hammond_tj
2012-10-24 02:56 am UTC (link)

"Pity," TJ countered with an exaggerated sigh. He wouldn't have minded an out all night, sleep through the day sort of life. But, that didn't seem to be in the cards.

Taking Travis' hand, he shook his head. "And it's so stable now? It started at the beginning of the month and took this long to cause the headaches in the first place. It's getting better for how long? There's no set timetable for any of this. So you can't predict it anymore than we can predict ours developing. You keep saying we're in this together. Deal with what that means. In this case, company at work for the foreseeable future."

He didn't meet his brother's gaze. A quick glance at his face was enough to see the question there and he didn't think he had any answers. Instead, he raised an eyebrow at the litany of training needs. It was on the tip of his tongue to say they wouldn't need aerobics if they just had a lot of sex. But, he was strangely reticent to push the issue in front of Doug, especially when he was already looking at TJ like he was. "Training is a full-time job in and of itself."

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travis_marks
2012-10-24 03:33 am UTC (link)

"Sorry to ruin your fun." He sounded as apologetic as he was, which meant not even a bit. That lifestyle had so many potential triggers for an addict that he was happy to keep TJ as far away as possible. Of course that was impossible when TJ insisted on coming with him.

Travis shook his head. "I got a headache at the school, too. You might not have noticed, but I left the living room. It wasn't that I didn't care. I couldn't take it anymore. I thought... I don't know what I thought. The towers were down, things needed to be done. I dealt with it, and it wasn't as bad, but there weren't as many people as there are at the club."

He laced his fingers with TJ's and squeezed. "If you decide to come with me, then you can't work, because there's no time for you to do the important things like training, which is your primary job, both of yours. We didn't do this so you can babysit me."

"We didn't do it so you can babysit us, either," Doug answered. "And besides, why do we need to make a decision now. He can come this week and then we worry about it next week. It's not like one more week is going to ruin his resume." He wasn't even sure why he was backing TJ up, probably just because he was so used to coming to TJ's support that he didn't even think about whether he agreed or not.

Travis looked at Doug, before turning to TJ again. He stared for a moment, and sighed. "You don't have to do this, but okay, we can go through the week, but you can start looking anyway, get an idea, and if you do find something, then we worry about it." He smiled a little "You're stubborn, but thank you."

Doug groaned as he got up, going to the fridge where the drink of choice was milk or juice. "You two make me want to puke or drink, and not the crap we have in here. I should have fucked that stripper at that bachelor party," he said, shaking his head.

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hammond_tj
2012-10-24 06:55 pm UTC (link)

"Liar." TJ wasn't fooled. But, he'd live with it. At least until it got too boring. Then, well, things might change. Things changed a lot when he got bored.

He rolled his eyes, but smiled and squeezed Travis' hand back gently. "I'm not putting off looking and Doug's right. My resume's hardly going to be hurt if I come keep an eye on you at work until I find something." Find something. Settle for peanuts, from the sound of it. "When I find something, we'll see what we need to do. Besides, I said foreseeable future and Doug will tell you I'm not big on looking too far into the future anyway," He added with a grin. "So, you're welcome."

Watching his brother get up, TJ smirked at his brother in a way he knew was annoying and irritating and something only he could get away with giving Doug. "Sounds like we need to find you a woman, bro. Maybe we should go out a night Travis isn't working and find a club with a few less men, few more women?"

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travis_marks
2012-10-24 07:10 pm UTC (link)

Travis laughed. "Considering when I work and when he works, you two might have to go without me." He looked at Doug for a moment. "You might want to ditch the wedding band though. I find that women doesn't really like fucking married men."

Doug looked down at his hand and snorted. "It's never been a problem in our family. For mom, maybe, but a wedding band has never stopped the rest of us."

"Still, it's less noticeable," Travis said, before smiling. "Okay, enough about long term plans, since TJ doesn't like them. How about we plan for tonight? We can have dinner under the star, or at least near the star. I can cook, get a bottle of wine, we can sat up in the bedroom, we get the sky and lights without the cold of the balcony, unless you two want to go out, and we can still find a club for after dinner. I'd rather not spend-"

"The money," Doug finished. "We can stay home until we got more. I can find women without the clubs. Don't worry about it. I never had a problem getting laid before and I never go to clubs."

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hammond_tj
2012-10-24 10:30 pm UTC (link)

"All depends on the woman. Or the man." TJ didn't have a ring of his own, didn't particularly want one. But, a ring hadn't stopped him from getting involved with Sean or fucking around with others. Although, he wondered if it didn't mean more to Doug than he let on. He'd only slipped with one person. He wasn't their father fucking everything in a skirt, or even TJ who was just about as bad with men and still fit in a few women.

"Not from lack of my trying to get you to come out once in awhile," he pointed out when Doug said he could get women without clubs. There were times TJ really thought his twin needed to loosen up a bit. Maybe not as much as TJ did. Despite his own desires and tendency to tempt Doug with the drugs and sex and parties, if his brother had fallen into the sort of lifestyle TJ had, he'd worry as much as he knew Doug worried about him. After all, he wasn't exactly doing any of these things because they were good for his health. "Dinner sounds good. But, at least one night we need to spend the money and go out. Training is all well and good, but we're trying to do more than just learn how to survive. This is also supposed to be about self-discovery and finding our own feet, right? Can't do that if we never leave the apartment for anything but work and training." Might as well have stayed with the others if that was all they were going to do.

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travis_marks
2012-10-24 10:44 pm UTC (link)

"The concept of not having money is not one you understand, is it?" Travis asked, chuckling "Self discovery also means to live within your means. It means putting aside money for those jackets we will need soon, because the temperature is dropping faster than usual."

"We really don't have to go out," Doug said. "We can have dinner here, and maybe go downstairs, see if there are people. It's not like I can stay up until late if I want to be up tomorrow. It's fine, TJ. Really." One thing he did know was discipline in the name of a job. He would have burned out long ago if he'd kept TJ's hours.

Travis raised their joined hands and kissed TJ's knuckles. "How about we compromise. We don't spend money today. We can go downstairs like Doug suggested and we go out next week. Halloween is on Wednesday, I'm not working, plenty of people out, bar crawl, costumes, plenty of people out, more than you'll find on a Monday night. And besides, doing this together means that I need to get to know your brother too. Is that okay with everyone?"

Doug nodded. "It's fine." He could live without going out. He had a job, they'd make money, he'd meet new people. It was fine as far as doug was concerned.

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