Russ sat in the tape-tacky cab seat and he tapped his fingers on the steering wheel in mindless time with the classic rock still spilling quietly from the radio. He'd give it fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes was long enough to find pants in the dark, drunk and he didn't give a shit for fancy food. The place, the heavy outline of it in the dark, gave him the fucking creeps. He thought it was weird, offering food, half naked after being jumped in the middle of the night but Russ also figured maybe that's what you did when you were raised right, you offered food in your big, creepy fucking house whilst you found clothes so you didn't make your sister wish she hadn't seen your genitals.
When Louis emerged, Russ gave a jerk upward of his chin that could have been a hello, or it could have been a comment on the clothing or it could have been impatience to get going. He had slid back on the seat, one foot up on the dashboard, and as Louis moved toward the truck, sluggish heat spilling out from the useless fans on the dash, Russ slid back into readiness to pull away from the curb.
Louis's wish was granted. The bite of the accelerator ate away at gas as the truck lurched forward, a whine of an engine trying too hard to please.
"Yeah?" Russ looked over his shoulder. Dressed, Louis looked like maybe he wasn't about to scream or faint, both of which as possibilities made Russ extremely uneasy. "Ain't too bad." He said nothing else that was constructive, quiet (tired) solidity with one hand wrapped around the wheel and the other loose in his lap, occasionally lifted to change gear.
Sam's place was as dark as the rest of fucking Gotham in the middle of the night. Russ lifted his phone out of the well between the seats and he punched in her number, ringing three times before hanging up. He wasn't going to wake the fucking neighbors and add to the chaos. "She got old," Russ said, suddenly, looking out the window into the ink-dark night. "Sam. Real quick." He was looking at Louis with careful blue eyes. "Said you were there. Still Sam though. Where it counts."