Conner Reece (reece_con) wrote in rrinitiative, @ 2012-09-14 00:10:00 |
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Entry tags: | day four, reece, reece and wu, wu |
Idle Hands
Characters: Reece and Wu
Setting: Courtyard, just before lunch
Reece was still sitting on the picnic table long after Jun-he left. Chain smoking wasn’t entirely accurate, but he was working his way through another. He could probably go somewhere or do something, but no one seemed to expect him to do anything, so sitting outside, despite the fact that it looked like rain, was enough of an activity for him for the day. What more could he be expected to do with himself anyway?
It had been a busy day for Wu, albeit a solitary one so far. He hadn’t expected that to change after coming here, really, though the chance of meeting people without the luxury of ordering them off? Well, it made things trickier for the old gangster, and when he had to spend time figuring out those tricks, Wu got restless.
But he’d put it to good use at least, exploring new space and seeing to personal gains that Wu had tucked back in his room. With laundry fresh on the hangers and a fresh coffee from the kitchen, Wu headed out into the courtyard with an unlit cigar tucked in one hand, pausing to regard the grey sky overhead. He took a deep breath like that, eventually looking to Reece with the same thoughtfulness he’d given the sky. “When given a choice, you choose inaction?” he called intently, pausing to light his cigar before starting across.
Reece looked up after a minute, grinning a little before reaching for a new cigarette to light it. “Yes,” he said though he drew it out a little to make it seem like more than a one word answer. “What else should I be doing with myself?”
“No man can answer that for you,” Wu pointed out neatly as he closed distance, “Not unless you serve him. And you strike me as the sort who does not serve.” It was the brash laziness and defiance in Reece that said as much; the laid-back demeanor that Wu could tell would become a fire if someone pushed him enough. The sharp edges.
Reece blew smoke into the space between them, grinning some. “Not really the following orders type no. But I suppose if someone expects me to do something at some point I might consider doing it. What are you up to?”
“An idle moment,” Wu answered, gesturing with both his mug and cigar as if they said as much for him. “Necessities are simpler tasks if you do them while others sleep, and mine are done.” Three more days worth of laundry, the liberation of his cigars and cognac, and a quiet stroll for observation? It was good to have a routine again. “I must step into the gym at some point, as well. But there is no urgency in it, or anything we do here, I suppose.”
“I was thinking that way,” he said. “The lack of urgency. Though I do appreciate the part where you did things while I slept through the morning.” Reece picked up his coffee mug and held it up in mock toast even if his was down to the dregs and cold at this point. “Getting in a work out?” He could probably do that, but he had only worked out in prison out of boredom.
Wu gave a little grunt of acknowledgment as he puffed his cigar, moving to sit at the other end of the picnic table. “Age is a cruel penalty,” he said as he raised his mug for a sip. “If I am not diligent, the years stack up quickly.” That was what he liked people to think, at least. And in five years, maybe? It would be true. But here and now, Wu was still viciously fit. “It fills time, as well. I have a great deal of sentence to serve.”
Reece considered that tilting his head back and forth. “I suppose I could say the same, though I’d be comparing it to when I was eighteen which I’m sure that no amount of working out could reverse.” He grinned a touch. “I had quite a bit too. I was just thinking I only did it to pass the time and at the moment I’m not bored with here yet.” At least Susanna had kept parts of it interesting for sure, though that show she put on at dinner with the dick in the cowboy hat was something he hadn’t enjoyed watching, but Reece wasn’t thinking about it. He wasn’t the jealous type, not at this point at least. What was there to be jealous of anyway?
“I had a great deal when I formed the habit,” Wu agreed, “And it passed much of the time I spent as a young man.” Then, of course, he’d broken out of prison and vanished in the night. “And good, boredom leads to troubling diversions. I will not suffer them in this place.” Which might’ve sounded like a threat if there had been any emphasis behind the words, but as it was? Wu was just stating a fact; he was going to pass this program and walk away, and the others weren’t going to trip him up.
“Troubling diversions of what sort?” Reece asked, raising an eyebrow at that. “You think there’ll be such a thing or are we talking about something that I should already know about?” Because that was a touch unsettling.
There was a little trail of smoke as Wu waved his cigar, dispelling Reece’s suggestion with the gesture. “Nothing as of yet,” he assured the younger man, “But I see potential. Alcohol, opposing genders, rivalries that will exist if they do not already. Without our old confines, some here may forget the limits of this place.” He’d seen exactly that in the cafeteria last night as the others drank themselves silly and acted like they weren’t convicts, and now? Now they knew it would be a finite supply, and that could become tense unto itself. “Invest enough time in the vice of others,” Wu advised, raising his mug, “And you will always see its’ control. I would avoid that control, small tokens aside.” Like a Cuban cigar, hot coffee, or privacy.
“Opposite genders,” Reece said with a grin that gave more away that it should have. He’d already found himself walking down that path without much consideration in another direction. “So you’re worried we’re all going to fall into our old habits? Or we’ll lose people to the vices we’re letting them indulge in?”
“The latter,” Wu confirmed with a nod, “Though I do not worry. I prepare.” He took a long moment to savor his cigar, head canting back a bit to puff out lazy rings of smoke before Wu gave Reece his attention again. “Habits are not easily broken, and when a man is thirsting for water in the desert, does he drink slowly? Or does he gulp down everything he can to the point of agony?” he asked evenly.
“How do you prepare for something like that?” Reece asked, feeling like maybe he should be doing something to prepare himself. “Gonna go with gulp down like a dumbass.” Which was exactly what Reece had done. He hadn’t even considered anything more than ‘sure’ when Susanna showed up at his door.
There was a flicker of a smile and a short, sharp bark of a laugh at that; humor that stayed in the crinkling of Wu’s eyes as he nodded to Reece. “There are many ways to be ready,” he mused with another sip of his coffee and a tap to knock ash from his cigar. “Deprivation in all things, for example? If you deny what is offered, nothing can be taken from you,” Wu suggested thoughtfully, “When I drink, when I have cigar, it is because I choose to. It is not because another lures me or puts the comfort of their offer in my mind. I earn what I take, by my own standards.”
It was a harsh perspective that Wu wouldn’t expect to find in others, but it had been necessary to seize and maintain the power he’d held. “Shave an hour from your sleep each night, and you rob an hour from the window of surprises that may find us,” he went on with a puff of smoke, “To prepare for the unknown means to prepare for all things and nothing in the same focus. For all I know, this place will be calm and uneventful, but I will not leave any worse for my readiness. If none of our peers cause trouble, I will have no reason to act. And if they do?” He shrugged then, gesturing with the cigar errantly. “They will have to be very good at that trouble.” Better than the Devil.
Reece got lost for a moment, thinking what he was hearing sounded something like a fortune, but that was probably not the right way to think about it at all. So he drew his focus back, taking another drag on his cigarette while he tried to retain everything. The end of it made him smile though, raising one eyebrow curiously before shaking his head. “Remind me to stay on your good side,” he said, blowing smoke then tapping his cigarette on the ashtray between them. “I have to admit, I’m not that worried about trouble. I haven’t met that many people that intimidate me that much yet.” Not even Mr. Cowboy Hat who was more pretty than anything else. Reece might not be that imposing size-wise, but he was scrappy. He’d always been scrappy.
“Which have struck you as intimidating?” Wu asked curiously, wanting Reece’s filter applied to what he knew of the place. The younger con hadn’t outright deferred to Wu, but he wasn’t challenging either, and that was good enough for the moment. “And which did you fuck?” It was jarring, probably, to hear it spoken so plainly. Wu’s controlled habits robbed the crassness to some degree, but still the blatancy of it clashed with the neatly composed man as he nursed his coffee. He hadn’t missed Reece’s reactions before when talking about risks here, but at the time he’d been asked a question, too.
Reece ran his thumb along his lip smiling a little as Wu asked both his questions. The crassness wasn’t that shocking, not when it was the truth. “You,” he said at first. “Not that I’m that worried, but you give off that ‘don’t fuck with me’ air. As for who I fucked...that would be Susanna.” He wasn’t ashamed of it, not even if she had her sights set on someone else now.
Nodding, Wu left the possible compliment without response beyond the gesture. He’d worked at it to some extent, sure, but mostly it was a trait noticed by people who liked surviving. “Susanna. I have seen her on the journals.” And he’d make note of her now, if only because of the connection to Reece. “I am not one to give advice on such things, but that instance? Powerful risk to foolish men who value it too greatly. More simply,” Wu noted with a memory of first meeting Reece and explaining what ‘idyllic’ meant, “Do not let your dick do the steering.”
“It’s more impressive to see her in person,” Reece pointed out. He did appreciate the rewording of Wu’s advice, because otherwise he would have been forced to ponder his way through it, with no hope that he made it out the other end with the right explanation. Grinning a little more he shook his head. “She approached me. I took advantage of satisfying an itch I hadn’t in over five years. I’m not about to turn into some sort of sap or needy bastard.”
That right there? That was a big part of why Wu loathed men. It was testicle-driven logic, a short-sightedness that literally stopped at the nearest pretty face, ass, or set of breasts. Men like that never even considered the possible ulterior motives, or really anything beyond their private five seconds of bliss. And they’d never see their own weakness in giving in so freely.
Sharing any part of that thought process took him a moment, though, as Wu sipped his coffee again and set his mug down, just watching Reece for a drawn-out span of seconds. “And you used protection, of course. In case she was unclean or pursuing another angle. You considered the possible consequences, the familiarity she gains with you. Yes?”
Reece smile shifted slightly to a frown, looking more at the cigarette in his hand than Wu. “No. Well not really. As for her familiarity, if you mean that in an ‘attached’ sense she spent last night at dinner blatantly throwing herself at someone else. I’m not exactly worried about her getting that close.”
“You might say that makes you ‘some sort of sap’,” Wu pointed out with an errant wave of his hand that was meant to dispel any malice in the words. “My point is simple, Reece: the things we want can be used against us, and accepting them exposes us in our moments of comfort. We are not free.” Wu fell silent there, reclaiming his coffee for a long sip. “And whatever we are offered here is dangerous if taken at face value every time, both our luxuries,” he waxed, raising his cigar as an example, “And our peers.”
Reece thought about that then shook his head. “Touche,” he said, in regards to being a sap. Maybe he was in a way. Or an easy mark for a pretty girl at the very least. “So you’re suggesting that even though we finally have a small taste of freedom, things we want, that we should not take advantage? That seems like a waste sometimes.” He took another long drag on his cigarette, holding the breath for a moment before letting it out in a stream of smoke. “I never expected to be all that free. Life would have passed me by before I got out of jail. Maybe not completely but the good stuff. Now that I’m here...I’m not sure I’m leaving any time soon. Not taking advantage of what little I have makes this prison sentence seem even longer.”
That was understandable, especially if Reece was staring down decades of time. Really, Wu already saw the reasoning, had watched it firsthand in the cafeteria last night. The big problem was that he was a stubborn old bastard, which meant he was right. At least where it counted, with himself. “I am saying you should earn the luxuries,” Wu clarified with a little shake of his head. “Do not ignore them entirely. If I said that while smoking a Cuban? I would be a hypocrite.”
He sat forward with that, chomping down on the aforementioned cigar and puffing it heartily. “Only you could say how anything is earned for you, but it gives structure to life here. It gives a reason to have something other than simply wanting it.” Which could’ve been sage advice, if it weren’t for the clipped, brusque way that Wu had about him.
“So what did you do to earn that?” Reece countered, honestly curious how Wu was justifying it in his head. What he said made sense, sure. Reece was a firm believer in getting what came to you, in actions having a result and living with those results, but often he was peering at a negative situation, not positive reinforcement. “And who’s to say I didn’t earn Susanna?”
“You are.” Wu’s head tipped just a bit, asking Reece to consider the idea and tell him otherwise, if Wu was wrong. “And I? Woke at six, pushups and situps until seven, discovered the laundry and tended to my clothes, and will put in another hour in the gym today, as well as see to dinner dishes.” It wasn’t that he liked helping, either; Wu just saw no reason to be still yet. Later, sure, later he could lurk in silence and watch the others from a distance. For now? He could be social. Social-ish. “It is worth a cigar in kind.”
Reece did consider the idea. “I gave her a pack of smokes,” he offered. “From my stash, not the communal stash that got laid out when the bar showed up. Though I suppose the bottle of whiskey she lifted for me was more payment for that than the sex.” The sex was just an added bonus in Reece’s mind though with the way Wu talked maybe it was something else. “Sounds like a productive day. I can’t say I’ve done more than wake up and greet a newcomer. And of course have a nice conversation with you.”
It didn’t quite matter to Wu who had given who what; it was still a transaction that had ended in Reece diving into potential trouble. More, it sounded like this Susanna was crafty enough to prioritize, to know how to get what she wanted and leave Reece not questioning it. “Not so productive, but the day is not over yet,” he mused, “And who is the newcomer? We seem to have new faces among us with each new day.”
“I figure there’s still time to do something,” Reece said, though outside of rumors of a football game, he wasn’t sure what else he wanted to do. Maybe he’d check out the new areas that had been added. Wu had said something about laundry, not that he wanted to take care of that, but he could supposedly. “Choi...Choi Jun...something. An interesting kid.”
“Korean,” Wu grunted knowingly, recognizing the surname. He’d dealt with plenty of Korean thugs in his time, had allowed many to join the Suns, and all in all? They weren’t a bad people. “I will look for him myself.” Which could’ve been taken ominously, not that Wu was clarifying. No, he was just curious, always wanting some impression of the people he was forced to live with. “Yes, there is still time,” he agreed with another curt nod, finally stubbing out the last of his cigar first on the bench, then between two fingers with a faint line in his brow. “It is the only thing we seem to have in abundance, for now.”
“Sure,” Reece said agreeing, but not really agreeing. What the hell did he know the difference from? He’d only had conversations with probably four asian people in his life and Wu was one of them, Choi the other. “You can’t miss him.” Which was true enough, he’d looked different than anyone else here so far. “I doubt that lasts for long. I’m surprised we haven’t been put to tasks yet.”
“We will,” Wu pointed out with faint amusement. “Meals, cleaning, and now laundry. Clothes and bedsheets, yes? As well as the doctor’s work. It is volunteer work for now, but soon? Perhaps not. Perhaps there will be more, tasks that cannot be ignored.” Maybe with rewards for good work, like any lackey deserved. And Wu hated that idea; the knowledge that he was so low in here. “Prepare for their arrival,” he added, swinging his legs out from the table as he got ready to stand. “And if they do not come? Bask in their absence, you excel at inaction,” Wu noted with a hint of amusement again.
Reece rolled his eyes. “Fine, fine. Chores to be done.” He stubbed out his own cigarette, but didn’t do more than that. He might be motivated to do something else today, but he wasn’t jumping up to do it this instance. At Wu’s last comment he grinned. “Someone has to be good at it.”
Wu nodded at that is if it were a valid point, standing and stepping away from the table. “In my homeland, many believed that it was a path to wisdom. I do not believe such things,” he clarified, “But if it brings you stability in this unknown place? Enjoy it.” Anything else he had that might’ve been helpful had already been shared, and Wu gave a curt nod a moment later. “I will speak with you again, I am sure,” he said in parting, not lingering for anything similar from Reece before turning on a heel to start back through the courtyard.
“I could use some wisdom,” Reece pointed out, but he wasn’t surprised that Wu didn’t believe in it. Nor was he surprised that Wu was leaving with out much of goodbye either. Reece still waved at the retreating figure, shaking his head a touch. “Later.”