Kanan Jarrus (spectre01) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2016-04-18 19:44:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, kanan jarrus, yue katou |
Who: Kanan and Katou
What: Katou has some questions about Kanan's job
Where: Chateau Katou
When: Early last week
Rating/Warning: PG-ish - Katou likes to drop the f-bomb and drugs are mentioned
Status: Complete!
Katou wasn’t generally a curious guy. He couldn’t bring himself to care much about what other people did with their time, just like he’d be pissed if someone was prying into his own personal business.
But there was something about Kanan and whatever it was he did that raised all sorts of questions in Katou’s mind. It started off with nothing, really. Katou wondering what the hell the guy would want with some teenage shoplifter working for him - most people tended not to hire being when their first experience with them was catching them stealing. But despite the fact that Katou ran a fair amount of errands for Kanan, none of them were really work related. It was getting him dinner, or picking up laundry (before Kanan moved in), or sometimes trips to the post office (which he supposed could be work related). In fact, he wasn’t sure if he’d ever seen Kanan actually doing any work.
He was gone every weekend, which Katou supposed could mean anything. Maybe he was just visiting one of the girlies he’d bring home with him, but that didn’t explain all the cash he’d always come back with. But the weirdest thing by far was the fact that the guy had a new goddamn car every fucking week. At first, Katou thought that the guy was just renting them for a little bit, until he could get his own car. But with the amount of money that he would have had to have spent on car rentals by now, he probably could have bought a nice used vehicle for it. Even Katou couldn’t help the burning curiosity, and the last week or two he’d fallen asleep with the question in his mind every night.
Which is why after this weekend, Katou was waiting around for Kanan to get home. When the door opened, Katou was sitting on the couch, his guitar on his lap, with a bottle of whiskey in one hand and the neck of his instrument in the other. “S’up, man?” He asked, before Kanan had even closed the door.
It had been a long and boring drive back from Las Vegas. Four hours of boring highway going mainly through desert scrub in a car that had not been his first choice. Had it not been for the fact that that weekend’s client had been a close personal friend (not to mention long time business associate) of his former boss and guardian, Janus Kasmir, Kanan wouldn’t have even bothered with the drive. He hadn’t even had the time to actually enjoy himself at the Mandalay Bay where he’d agreed to meet the client. Nor had he the chance to supplement the somewhat meager rate he’d transported the client’s goods at.
He really should have upped the rate, but the old man and Janus went back so far that it didn’t seem...right. If such a thing as “right” existed in the world of smuggling and black market dealings. Besides, the client had known Kanan since he’d started working for Janus at the tender age of fifteen. Dude was like an Uncle. An uncle who had made a fortune selling Colombian cocaine.
It had been a six hour round trip made over a little less than 24 hours (not counting the trip down into Tijuana to actually pick up the shipment) and Kanan was exhausted by the time he got back to Chateau Katou. His back and shoulders ached and his driving knee was smarting. What kind of rental place rented cars without fucking cruise control?! All he wanted to do was have a glass of bourbon and go to bed. He’d check the wire transfer in the morning and delegate the funds to the proper accounts.
He hadn’t expected to find Katou seated in the living room, guitar in his lap and bottle of whiskey at the ready. Nor had he expected to be greeted before he’d even gotten into the door.
“Hey,” Kanan greeted through a yawn. He closed the door behind him and shifted his overnight bag on his shoulder before crossing through the living room towards his room. “Have a good weekend?”
“It was more of the same,” Katou said, a bored drawl to his voice. “Did a bitta homework, worked out, had a buncha beers. What about you?” He eyed Kanan critically. “You look like you could use a drink,” he said, holding the bottle out to the older man.
There was something about the way Katou was looking at him that Kanan didn’t like. If he was in Boss Mode, he’d have called the kid out on it. However, at that moment he was not. He was in Roommate Mode. It was important that a balance betweenu the two be kept, especially if they were going to make this living arrangement work.
“It was long,” Kanan answered him. He eyed the bottle Katou handed to him for a moment before taking it. It wasn’t bourbon, but it’d do the trick to relax his aching muscles. “Thanks,” he said as he let his duffle bag slide off his shoulder to the floor by the couch. He made his way towards the kitchen to get a glass.
Whiskey poured, Kanan came back into the living room to hand Katou back his bottle and make himself comfortable on the couch. He stretched his legs out in front of him with a satisfied “Ahhh.” and thought it would probably be a good while before he could be bothered to move again. He drank from his glass and glanced at the guitar in Katou’s lap. “What are you playing tonight?”
When it was back in his hand, Katou took a swig straight from the bottle and then put it on the floor by his feet. “Nothing really,” Katou said, absentmindedly strumming a simple tune. He’d had to switch over to playing left handed, but lately he was just as good as he had been before. His biomechanical arm was just a little sloppy compared to his real arm (even if it was his left), and the dull metal nails that protruded from the tips of his black steel fingers seemed perfectly suited for strumming, so once he had gotten used to it it was almost better than before. “Just fucking around on it tonight.” He had his notebook and a pen nearby in case he came across a tune that he wanted to use later, but it wasn’t on the top of his agenda.
Kanan was his number one priority.
“Looks like you had a helluva weekend,” he said, a heavy-handed attempt at subtly.
The observation was simple enough. Kanan was exhausted and he looked exhausted. Anyone else who saw him would probably have agreed with Katou and said something similar. But it was the way Katou had said it that made Kanan look at him wearily. What was he fishing for?
“You could say that, yeah,” he answered cautiously. “What’s this sudden interest in my weekend about?”
Katou shrugged. “You know, just trying to see if you got yourself a new car again. Or if you’ve got another wad of cash stuffed down your pants.” He rolled his eyes. “Maybe it ain’t my business, but even I eventually gotta wonder about who the fuck I’m working for and living with when you don’t seem to actually fucking do anything.” Despite his words, there wasn’t much rancour to his voice. It was just like he was having a casual conversation, sprinkled with liberal amounts of cussing.
By now Kanan was used to the way Katou spoke. There were times the young man was biting in his tone, and there were times he wasn’t, Kana wasn’t offended either way. No matter which tone Katou chose to use, however, there was always an f-bomb or two thrown in for good measure. Kanan had long accepted that Katou used the word “fuck” like some people used the word “like”.
This was an unusual line of questioning, though, but one Kanan had expected would come up eventually. Actually, he was surprised Katou hadn’t questioned him about his job before now. He had given some thought about what he’d tell Katou when he finally got around to asking.
“I do transport work,” he answered calmly. “I transport things people don’t want to trust to UPS, Fedex, or - god forbid - the US Mail. Valuable things. It’s a premium service and those who demand it are willing to pay top dollar for it.” He took a sip of his drink. “Transporting requires that I travel, sometimes for a long distance. I sure as hell am not going to put that kind of mileage on my own car.
Kanan’s answer made Katou frown, his brows furrowing together and his eyes narrowing slightly in suspicion. It didn’t matter what kind of mileage he was putting on his own car, it didn’t make sense to keep renting new ones unless his job required a certain amount of anonymity. No matter how you sliced it, renting a car was more expensive than driving your own. “Is it drugs?” he asked before it even occurred to him to adopt his usual devil-may-care facade.
Kanan choked on his drink. The fuck had he come up with that?! Kanan was damn careful about not pulling Katou into this world the same way Janus had pulled Kanan into it. At least, he believed he’d been careful. There were certain things he couldn’t hide, like the money and a new car every week, but there could be any number of reasons for that. The fact that Kanan had transported a couple of kilos of coke up to Nevada made Katou’s accusation a little too spot on the nose.
“Fuck! No, it’s not drugs! Jesus Christ, do you think I’m insane?!”
Katou let out a heavy sigh at that and relaxed. He slung the arm holding the whiskey bottle over the back of the couch, adopting a more relaxed posture. He still thought about drugs more than he’d like to admit, even though it had been eight months since he’d last touched anything worse than marijuana or whiskey, so it had been the first thing his mind had jumped to. It had been the first thing he’d asked Kanan when Kanan first offered him a job, and now that he thought about it seemed silly to assume that his answer would change.
“Alright, what is it?” he asked, the smile on his face again, warmer now than it had been since Kanan had walked in. “Stolen art? Counterfeit money? Antique dishware?” The last said with a scoff that implied he didn’t entirely believe it’d be something so mundane.
Kanan had never once in his life felt bad about lying about what he did for a living. When he’d been Katou’s age, he would listen to the kind of spin Janus would put on their line of work and he’d quickly learned that the less you said about it the better off you were. The safer you were. Kanan was good at lying. He’d done it most of his life. He’d never felt bad about it before. So why did he feel like shit for not telling Katou the truth? He was lying to protect the little punk.
“Yeah,” Kanan laughed. “That’s it. I deliver antique dishware all over the west coast to charming and rich little old ladies.” The urge to tell Katou the truth as nagging at him annoyingly. He glugged down what remained in his glass. God damn, he wanted a cigarette.
The smile faded briefly from Katou’s face, just so he could give Kanan a long level stare that all but screamed ‘I’m not buying it.’ Then the smile was back again. Really, so long as it wasn’t drugs, Katou didn’t really give a shit what it was Kanan that was doing. So long as he gave Katou his paycheque and the bills were paid on time, it wasn’t any of his business. “Yeah, alright,” he said. “Dishware. I’ll buy it.”
“Katou…” Kanan started then stopped himself. What was he going to tell the kid? That he was a smuggler? Kanan knew that was a bad idea on so many levels. It could get the kid into trouble. If Kanan got caught (which was always a possibility, no matter how cautious he was or how many precautions he made) then Katou had plausible deniability. And if anyone wanted to make trouble for Kanan either legally or buisnesswise, the kid couldn’t be used against him. The idea of anyone using Katou to get to him actually made Kanan angry and he really didn’t understand why. He wondered if Janus had ever felt the same way about him.
There were dozens of reasons why Kanan shouldn’t tell Katou the truth, but there was one reason why he should and it nagged at Kanan. He sighed and rubbed his eyes. “I need a cigarette. Want to join me outside?”
Katou raised an eyebrow at his name, a little confused. He was pretty sure he’d just let Kanan off the hook with whatever secrets he was keeping, so he couldn’t see what was still eating the guy up.
“Yeah, I could go for a smoke,” Katou said. He detached himself from his guitar and put it back into its guitar stand, before fetching his smokes off the coffee table. “Top up?” He asked as he headed outside, holding the whiskey bottle he still held in his hands up.
“Yeah, thanks,” Kanan topped off his drink and dug his cigarettes out of his bag. He headed towards the back door. Kanan had never met Wendy Darling, but respected her standing rule of no smoking in the house, even if the woman wasn’t around to enforce it. He also figured she wouldn’t be thrilled with the idea of people lurking around her front door and sucking down ash, so he had made a little designated smoking section just outside the backdoor, complete with ashtray so he wouldn’t be ittering burned butts all over the place.
Once outside he pulled out a cigarette and lit up. Katou was ready to let him off the hook with his flimsy explanation, but Kanan wasn’t ready to let himself off quite so easily. He knew this was going to continue to bother him and if it was eating at him now, it would only drive him crazy later.
Kanan took a drag off the cigarette and let out a puff of smoke. “I need to tell you something,” he said. “And you may not like it.” He probably wouldn’t like it. In fact, Kanan wouldn’t blame him if he kicked him out for being a goddamn criminal.
Katou had never been much for rules, but Wendy had done so much for him that it seemed extra shitty somehow to break the rules just because she wasn’t here anymore. He owed her enough to walk ten feet out the door in order to get his nicotine fix.
“There really ain’t a lot that’s gonna get my panties in a twist,” Katou said, flopping haphazardly down into one of the patio chairs they’d placed out there. He lit his cigarette and took a drag, blowing the smoke out through his nose like a dragon, the wisps of smoke spiralling into the air until they disappeared. “Lay it on me.”
Kanan didn’t dance around the subject. It was best to just rip the bandage off now and deal with the aftermath, should any come. “I’m a black market smuggler.” Wow, it felt weird to say that outloud. Kanan couldn’t remember if he’d ever actually strung those words together in a sentence before. There were people who knew what he did, yes. People in Orange County, even - that was the entire reason he was here. Sort of. But Kanan had never once come out and said it himself to anyone. Much less a punk kid not even old enough to legally drink.
“Don’t ask what it is I deal in, the less you know the better, but I figure I owe you at least a truthful answer.”
Katou’s expression didn’t change, the shit eating grin still on his face, though he did let out an impressed whistle through his teeth. “Well, that’s fucking cool.” Kanan hiring him after catching him shoplifting suddenly made things make a whole lot more sense. “Like, organs and shit? Please tell me you sell black market organs.” Not for any reason, just because it seemed fucking cool. He knew Kanan had told him not to ask, but he kind of wanted to know if Kanan spent his weekends rubbing elbows with the kinds of guys who drugged people and let them wake up in a bathtub full of ice.
Kanan frowned at him before taking another drag from his cigarette. “Didn’t I just tell you not to ask?”
Black market organs was one of the few things Kanan had stayed away from. Black market organs and the flesh market. He wasn’t a fan of the practises of either trade, especially the flesh market. He’d heard horror stories that made his skin just fucking crawl over his bones. No amount of money would ever entice him into that world. Kanan didn’t always make his living honestly, but he had some scruples, dammit.
“Right, right,” Katou said, exhaling a cloud of smoke in a heavy sigh. “Black market dishware. I got it. Dunno why you think I'd be pissed about it though. What on earth gave you the impression I was all law abiding and shit?”
Kanan raised a brow at him. Were they not outside smoking instead sitting in the comfortable living room because Katou still wanted to follow Wendy’s rules? Sure, maybe the kid felt more inclined to follow a friend’s rules then that of the law (and in that, Kanan couldn’t fault him), but there was the idea of letting a criminal stay in said friend’s house that had worried Kanan. He smirked into his glass, “yeah, I get your point,” he said before taking a drink. “So has your curiosity been satisfied?”
Wendy had set forth no specific rules about allowing criminals inside her home. Actually, Katou had the impression that it wasn’t something she had ever been too concerned about. After all, Katou’d still been pushing pills when he’d first moved into Wendy’s house, living with Wendy giving him the incentive to clean up his act.
Not that he was expecting Kanan to clean up his act anytime soon, nor did he particularly care one way or another. “You bet it has,” Katou said, taking another swig from the bottle. “I mostly just wanted to make sure you weren’t selling dope or something. Knowing whatever else is just a nifty bonus.”
“Selling isn’t my area of expertise,” Kanan said with a puff of smoke, “so you don’t have to worry about that. I think it should go without saying, but this conversation stays between us, alright? You’re the only one I’ve told about what I do.” there were other people who knew what Kanan did. Leliana and Lina. But they had once been a part of the criminal world themselves. Aside from Katou, no one on the outside knew, or needed to know.
“Oh shucks,” Katou said, slapping his knee in feigned disappointment. “I was just about to tell all my pals.” He gave Kanan a mocking wink, though secretly he was more than a little pleased that he was apparently the only person Kanan trusted with a secret like that. At least, the only person he didn’t work with. “This ain’t my first rodeo man, you don’t gotta worry.” People actually had to know what line of work he’d been in before in order to make any money, but even when he’d only been thirteen and green, he’d never let the name of his benefactor slip. He was five years older, and five years better at keeping his damn mouth closed now.
Kanan deadpanned at him. Shucks. Really? Then he sighed and shook his head. “I know I probably don’t, but I had to say it anyway.” He finished his cigarette and deposited the butt into the ashtray. He noted the thing was getting a little full and would need to be emptied when they went inside.
With his job out in the open, Kanan actually felt considerably better, like some kind of weight had been lifted off his chest. It didn’t make any sense to him, but he appreciated the feeling. He also appreciated the fact that his roommate hadn’t flipped some kind of gasket and kicked his sorry ass out. He really didn’t want to have to go back to the extended stay hotel. This place was actually kind of starting to feel like home. More so even than his apartment back east. It was weird.
He smirked teasingly down at Katou. “With that out of the way, there anything else about my personal life you want to know?”
At Kanan’s question, Katou’s face slowly spread into a devious smirk, smiling nearly from ear to ear. “Is that an open invitation?” Katou asked, snubbing out his cigarette between the thumb and index finger of his fake arm. “Because man, is there ever. Who’s your celebrity crush? Age you lost your virginity at? I could go all day, Bossman.”