Who: Neal & Revy What: Old associates, drinking it up. When: Before Neal went to Boston! Where: Undisclosed skeevy bar in which vaccinations are required before seating yourself Rating/Warnings: Profanity, lots of it Status: Complete
Sometimes people got confused about what a dive bar actually was. But owning one was a fine art, really. And certain criteria had to be met. For instance, if the place served drinks with fresh cucumber slices, fresh mint, or anything fresh? That was hipster-bar-posing-as-a-dive. Free wifi did not a dive bar make, nor did an actual working lock on the bathroom door plus a supply of toilet paper.
This? This was a dive bar. Overall, it teetered precariously on breaking a number of health code violations (the roaches crawling around, skittering to and fro definitely contributed to that). The glasses were dirty and didn’t match. There was only one pool table and it leaned. The only food you’d find didn’t consist of award-winning, artery clogging cheese fries but rather square pizza and packaged snacks. And Neal wouldn’t really recommend either, if asked. Dark corners, creepy paintings, shot and beer specials. Bleary-eyed patrons who were depressed but not quite suicidal. Maybe?
As for Neal, he was simply taking shots. Cheap tequila would do the job, and Henry was elsewhere, with his mom(s), so he wouldn’t worry about the kid. Though he probably had to worry about being shot in the face if Revy was having a bad night - still, there was something interesting about her. The lack of filter, or her choice occupation - that wasn’t really a choice, but we all needed jobs around here. His stepfather’s main associate Diablo had kind of liked her, but Diablo was weird.
“On your left,” he warned, and proceeded to squash something that was moving. It was a creepy-crawly, and didn’t belong on the bartop. Whatever it was. “This bar is definitely charming.” But they could basically do whatever and not get thrown out, so that was a bonus.
This place was the definition of fucking weird but whatever, it wasn’t boring, her apartment didn’t go missing forever (and it had been brought back with the stash of cigarettes and Heineken she’d purchased before Orange County temporarily went into an apocalyptic shithole), so all was, for now, well with the world. But if that could not happen again? Yeah, she’d be daaaaaamn peachy.
“Watch it there, princess,” came Revy’s raspy voice, lit cigarette caught between her lips, ashes falling. Dressed in boots with shoelaces that were coming undone, shorts with its fly down and a top that didn’t leave much to the imagination, she sat down and helped Neal shoo away the creepy-crawly corpse; it fell into a glass behind the bar. Tattoo exposed, scar lines visible under certain light - she’d wear those proudly, fuck you very much. “You’re going to kill yourself from alcohol poisoning before I get the chance to shoot a bullet up your puckered asshole. What’s the occasion?”
Not a bad place, though. No yuppies, no cops, she could cut loose and swim with the rest of the filth. Revy wanted a cheap drink and little judgment.
Neal didn’t want to see any cops. Or any yuppies, or any hipsters, or anyone besides the questionable company he had put himself in for the night. But he owed her a belated ‘welcome to the fuckery, sorry you have to edit deaf clown porn’ drink, so now was as good of a time as any - when he wanted to drown in a bottle of golden, pungent ambrosia.
“You like talking about my ass, don’t you?” he snorted, throat tipped back to down another shot. Things were just at the point where they were starting to pleasantly blur. “But to answer your question, had a death in the family. And things are complicated with my kid. The usuals.”
Lookit him guzzling it down like water, how grown up of him. Revy could smell the poison. Tequila. And if he’d gone the cheap route, nasty as shit tequila. “Har fucking har.” A large cloud of smoke exhaled in his general direction so he could revel in secondhand toxicity. “Another death and you somehow knocked somebody up during all this time? Christ, no wonder you’re drinking. Hey. Dipwad.”
Her ‘endearing’ nickname to the bartender who looked like he’d rather serve her piss in a glass, but her intention of getting his eye was accomplished.
“Ruuuuuum,” she sing-songed. “You got Bacardi?” Oh, wait. “Of course you don’t, you can’t afford it. Alright, whatever, well will do. Silver if I absolutely have to.” If he was doing shots, so would she. Maybe ease into beer later on so she wouldn’t get shitfaced that she’d shoot anything that moved.
Yep, this tequila tasted like piss left out to bake in the hot sun and perfume the air for a day or two, but it wasn’t like Neal cared. He didn’t mind getting completely trashed, since it had been awhile - this wasn’t even one of the Lina-approved shitty bars because those were just too painful to visit right now. Maybe after he’d come to terms with everything a bit more, in her honor, but at the moment he felt the ache of the wound far too severely.
“Elevenish years ago,” he said about knocking someone up. “Only just found out about him now. And the death wasn’t in that family - “ Though she was sort of well-versed with the characters who made up those reunions, “..just, you know, other family. Not by blood but the kind you sort of build for yourself.”
He reached a hand out, in a polite ‘gimmie’ sort of motion. “Gonna just blow smoke in my face, or can I bum a cigarette?” So he’d quit a few years ago. But there was nothing wrong with socially getting back into it, in further attempts to calm the riot in his head.
Revy got her rum. It really did look like piss, and she had to sniff it to make sure the bartender wasn’t being an ass. “Yeah, yeah,” she mumbled, taking out her crumbled up box of cigarettes and laying it out between them, lighter and all. Her personal perfume. Prick her skin and smoke would come out before blood. Neal wasn’t her buddybuddy, but probably the closest to one. Leon had been alright until she found out he was some bleeding heart cop that needed a cup of shut the fuck up.
“Well, fuck, I was about to say who else got shot in the face and died of cancer - though I don’t know if that disappoints me or not.” And just as soon as the rum came, she poured it down her throat and beckoned server-boy for another. It tickled her tongue in a grotesque sort of way. “People die, babies happen. Sorry for your loss, congratulations for your gain. If the kid thing is a good thing or some bitch is hounding you for child support.”
Hey, there it was, yeah? Straight up like a bold French roast. Absinthe without the sugar, one of those shitty shots of tequila with nothing to chase it. “Wise as usual, Rev,” Neal complimented, but he supposed there was some sense in what she was saying - she was just a harsh dose of reality that was like a chainsaw ripping through any fluff.
He lit the cigarette though, gladly taking the first puff. It had been awhile, and greeting the nicotine again was like shaking hands with an old friend. Then, a relieved exhale. “No hounding for child support, it’s not like that. I want to be there, but anyway - “ Shot glass in his other hand, the next went down easily as smoke curled off the end of his cancer stick - it would just be the one, since Neal didn’t desire to encounter the same fate as his stepfather. He wanted to be around to raise Henry.
“What about you, you get all your shit back? Everything good?”
It was the way life worked. Cruel, unrelenting life. Revy had gotten used to the hard facts fairly quick. She had to, otherwise her lifestyle would have swallowed her up whole and spit out only bones. “Don’t sweat it,” she mumbled, lighting up another lovely stick of cancer wrapped in bleach white, puffpuff, then a smooth exhale. “Sucks a lot of cock for now, but you’ll carry on. Especially with a little brat in the picture.”
It was another hard fact. The world would spin on and on, even if the people you thought would always be there were gone. Boo fucking hoo.
Second drink in hand, she swirled this one around in the spotted glass (because someone was too fucking lazy to polish his shit), letting the seconds tick by before taking the next chug. “All my shit’s back. Intact. Can’t complain. Already got the rundown of this crazy place so you don’t have to waste your breath.”
Perfect, because Neal was currently feeling just a wee tad bitter about the nature of Orange County, thanks to what happened involving Lina literally disappearing. So he didn’t think he’d be any good at explaining anything at the moment. “That’s the way it goes. Shit gets crazy and then it goes back to whatever the fuck we think normal for awhile, things are hunky dory, then something else ridiculous happens,” he exhaled in some semblance of a smoke ring, just to see if he still had a knack for it. Yep.
“You start to dream yet?” he asked curiously, because if Revy Lee got briefed on the ‘unique nature’ of her new home, then surely she had to have known about the dreeeeeams. It was kind of hard to miss them, considering it how ‘in’ it was to make Valarnet a dumping site for all the talk of those damn night (or naptime) visions.
Well, no shit. No other place had rampaging spiders or a week of fucking darkness, and while Revy wasn’t particularly religious she almost thought the end of times were near. Whatever lazy ass motherfuckin’ God was hoisted on a shiny throne about to hand their asses into, literally, a black hole. Then someone apparently got sucked into the sky and it stopped so who knew? Praise the martyr - better her than the rest of ‘em, as fucked up as it was to think.
“Naaaaaaaaaah,” she waved a hand dismissively. “Got lucky so far.” Knowing her it wouldn’t last, but she wasn’t running the opposite direction either. She’d stick it through until some hipster dressed in hemp gave her lip. “But here’s hoping I dream of shitting unicorns, or whatever. Better than waking up shot for no reason.”
“Been there, done that - it definitely happened to me,” Neal chuckled, savoring the one lone cigarette - puffs that were meant to enjoy the flavor of sticking your head in a chimney, not suck it back. Since he wouldn’t bum any more, and likely he’d get enough secondhand smoke regardless anyway. “Woke up shot, that is. Ex-fiancee tried to kill me. I also got possessed later on, and then died. So. I really hope you get shitting unicorns too.”
It didn’t seem likely but someone had to, around here. Although there didn’t seem to be much deviation - it was either death, mayhem, angst, pain, and torment all rolled into one pretty ‘send you off to therapy’ package, or fluffy mythical creatures and rainbow cupcakes (with sprinkles). No one’s dreams were boring, at least, that he knew of.
“It’s just funny how quickly people accept their circumstances,” he said, finally stubbing out the cigarette and letting it smolder. “We all hate this place and yet none of us will leave. We’re like, super stubborn masochists or something.”
Shot, possessed, death. “Jesus fucking christ,” she grumbled around her ember-tipped cigarette, amber eyes blinking wide once. Blinking wide twice. Then down the hatch went that second shot of rum, a third one on its way. Keep it comin’, dipwad. “I dunno, I think I’d probably jet if I went through all that horsecrap. In that order.”
Poor depressed little shit. Alright, order a fourth one - cheap tequila was nasty, the shit rum tasted a crapload better, so that’s what he got him. On her tab too. “My vote’s masochism. Think you could really go back to a normal life? After all that? I mean, shit, we ran with some pretty nasty things - and that sure as fuck wasn’t normal - but it doesn’t top the psycho dreams and all the baggage it comes with. You don’t come out the same after what we’ve lived, and it sounds like you sure as shit don’t come out the same after living here. You try to go out and blend in with the normal folk, it just doesn’t work.”
Well, that was her experience coming out of prison anyway, she figured the same attitude could be applied to all that. Normal just doesn’t fucking work anymore.
“No, that’s...well, it’s pretty much how it is,” Neal grumbled, because once you reached that razor-sharp turning point then there was no doubling back. No regrets, no time for them, no way to even remember what normal used to be. Fuck, he wasn’t sure what the definition was before, considering the life he had - abandonment up the wazoo, being partially raised and taught the tricks of the trade by a Mafia VIP, making it on his own in a not-so-legal sort of way. Now? Ain’t a chance in hell.
He really couldn’t picture moving to New York again. Not after everything. “Once you’re in, there’s no getting out. Things change and they change permanently. I guess maybe some people try, they manage to break the ties,” he shrugged, shot glass sliding back and forth between his hands. “But no, I don’t think I could. Roots are too deep.”
Rum! Hey, that was sweet of her. Down the hatch, the spiced-burn of it went. And it felt good.
Normal was some overrated bullshit. Revy never got a shot at it to know, but that’s what she figured. Ghetto street rat with a drunkard for a father whose main income was welfare didn’t bode for anything nice and cheery, no school projects or first proms or what not. Not that she even particularly minded - she honed a very useful skill and during her teenage years, made a fuckton of money. By stealing, but she thought that life was better than anything else she could have. Prison was a load of horsecrap but she survived, she got out and…
Was now editing porno. Now things blew. At least prison gave her an adrenaline kick. It was a game she knew how to play, a system she knew all too well to manipulate, and part of her almost missed it.
“Those people that try are bullshitting themselves, but kudos for the fucking attempt,” she shrugged, leaning back against the stool, elbow propped up. “So, what, are you going to attempt to play the role of a dad? Here? Aren’t we just discussing how fucked up this place is?”
Well, there were worse places to raise a brat, she guessed.
“And dude, the mom! Fucking spill it, princess, how’s that going?”
“Henry took to the OC like a fish to water,” Neal laughed, rough and scorched by the smoke and booze. “He’s...the way he is in the other plane of existence is that too. He likes the adventure - “ The tone was a little dubious, a little suggestive in that ‘he gives me grey hair’ sort of way, “...raising him here is like...well, it’s like we were meant to do that, I guess.” Sometimes he believed in destiny, or fate, whatever. A combo of both those ideas of ‘meant to be’ and the choices we make. Having both Emma and Henry here, finding out that the one time he met Emma before, the happiest of accidents had occurred, was testament to some of those foolish notions anyway, at least in his mind.
And there was nothing he wanted more than to be there for Henry. To make up for lost time. The kid had a happy life, a family who loved and cared for him, but tragedy changed circumstances and Neal wanted his shot too. “As for his mother, she’s good.” We might need to work on those nicknames, Revy, ‘cause princess was probably more Emma’s thing, come to think of it. “I mean, I’m like stupidly in love with her, but whatever.”
Another shot, please!
Revy fought a crooked tilt of her lips and failed, a single brow poked up at his drunken blurt of emotion. “You’re a hot mess,” she told him bluntly, hand slapping over his shoulder in what could be considered a sympathetic gesture but she was very rough around the edges (jagged would be a better word), so excuse the force behind it.
Second cigarette smothered, she’d go for a third in a couple minutes. “So that means you’re officially out, hm? Congrats. You got it easier than most.”
Coming into the clusterfuck of gangs and all that kind of bullshit - it was a contract written in blood. Getting out came with a heavy price. And anyone who was officially ‘out’ wouldn’t be trusted, couldn’t be trusted. They knew too much.
“I don’t even know if I was ever officially in. They just knew better not to touch me because of the old man,” Neal sighed; he had still learned the tricks of the trade regardless and hierarchy, rank, mafia code was everything - helped that you couldn’t touch family of the family too, so he had some pull, back then - when he was a kid, and he’d used it when he needed to. But damn, even that came at a heavy price as well. It was honestly a small scale miracle that he could walk down the street without getting run over or shot by mafia aficionados -
Actually, these days he really couldn’t walk down the street or go to a grocery store parking lot without getting run over and yet it had nothing to do with the Sicilian mafia. How was that for irony.
“But even so, yeah, I guess...I’m out. After his death, they were fucking disorganized for a hot minute there. I just wasn’t a priority and now...” Who knows. Someday they’d come looking for favors, Diablo and his crew, but Neal didn’t really want to think about that. “I’ll probably never be rid of the stain entirely though. It just sticks with you.”
“Oh, they’ll come back,” Revy deadpanned, eyes rolling. Fuckers like that had a habit of worming themselves back in somehow, someway, like you owed them a debt. “And no offense, but I don’t think you ever wore the stain all that well, princess. You’re better off playing daddy and making googly eyes at your baby oven.”
It was meant to be a compliment. Some people just had too much damn heart for that kind of lifestyle. Unless they were hunky-dory taking orders and asking absolutely no questions when it came to being employed by these fuckbags, but you needed a certain mindset for that. Or just like money too much to even care what the consequences were. That was the point. Profit, power, it made the world go ‘round and ‘round. Didn’t allow much time to raise a family behind a white-picket fence.
Revy was just one of those people really okay like that. Gutter rat without much of a future, and she didn’t have a damn problem going down all guns blazing. She made a mark. Not a good mark, but she was wild and fucking insane when it came to the job. Whitman fever, they called it.
“Tell you what, though: let’s get this shithead to give us a bottle, drink until our face goes numb, we’ll call a cab later. But we’ll toast. To your pops, Diablo being a dick forevermore, your kid, and the dead friend - cheers?”
Neal took it as a compliment. It was as close to one as Revy could handle, yeah? As much as referring to someone as baby oven could possibly be a compliment on that end too. Snort. “Thanks,” he side-eyed her in amusement, but meant it sincerely. He wanted to live his life as free from the dark stains of criminality as possible - it was a world that he had no choice about getting sucked into, and it spit him back out with useful skills tucked under his belt and a hell of a lot of baggage. That was fine though. He was dealing with it, dealing with everything, and he didn’t have to do it alone.
“A bottle of your choosing,” he added, letting the lady select their poison. “And here’s to recently departed friends, the old man, Diablo’s ugly face, and what makes everything worth it - which is in fact the kid.” That was the 100% truth too; he’d do it all over again, if it meant he had Henry. Maybe the dominoes fell how they were meant to after all.