savetheearth | Mission 7 - A Chance Meeting

Who: Anthony Sparado, Hajime Aikawa, Chinen Shou, and NPC mcfirestarter
What: Cleaning up some loose ends.
Where: Downtown Locke, couple of areas likely
When: December 1st, late afternoon/evening
Warnings: Violence, death, probably profanity.

Text: [The hurriedly typed address of a small bookstore somewhere downtown.]

Got a bite. It's show time, hope you're hungry.

Action: After the sting at Espresso Yourself things had fallen quiet again. By now quiet was worrying, instead of signalling peace and a break from madness Tony had come to associate the quiet with an impending shitstorm. With luck, and a good bit of skill, maybe he'd be able to cut this one off before things got unbearably messy. That was the plan, anyway.

Shou's contacts had given Tony a lead or two, and that coupled with his own ever increasing hunter's instincts he'd finally tracked down his quarry: The modified human that had been made to look like him.

After shooting a quick text to the both of them (he couldn't give them more time as much as he would have liked to) he began to move in. Storm clouds rumbled ominously overhead, briefly distracting Tony. Something about all of this was weirdly familiar, and unsettling. He adjusted the sword on his shoulder, shoved aside the anticipation causing a funny knot in his gut, and began to move in. Now he knew he spotted the guy around there somewhere. He couldn't have gotten too far, could he?

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There were sounds, distant and muted. A scuff, a thunk echoing in the hollow room. Tony's mind raced to track and keep up but was ultimately unfit to do so. Between the sedative and lingering damage he was far from capable of complex processes. He mumured, shifting in his sleep as he fought the fog away.

Was it danger? He couldn't tell, nothing made sense and everything hurt.

"Hn?"

"Settle down," Richard muttered, only half distracted by L leaving the room. He should have said something, probably, but in that moment he didn't want the younger man to stay. In fact, he likely would have ended up asking him to leave if he hadn't walked out of his own accord.

"'S just me. Shou let me know where you were." He was still carefully rubbing his hand over Tony's forearm before he closed his fingers loosely around the boy's hand. "Fuckin' hell, I swear you're tryin' to kill me."

More sounds. A voice? Familiar, comforting. Was it danger was it not? His damaged mind struggled to make sense of it all. It was dark, cool, and the pain was dull and constant. Nothing new nothing sharp. Safe then, perhaps? He grumbled again, coherency still at war with competing forces.

His one good eye cracked open and he lifted his head enough to get a brief blurry look at his father. Mind still a buzz, but Richard didn't raise any alarms, so he slumped back down.

"Not killed."

Of course not Tony you need to keep up.

He knew Tony had taken a shot to the head. Honestly, he'd expected to find him in a worse condition than this and how he was even alive at all had to be some kind of miracle.

"No, and you're damn lucky from the looks of things."

But how long could he keep this up? How long could either of them keep this up? If Tony was going to go running headlong into danger without telling him, flanked by people who apparently would encourage (or at least not put a stop to) such behaviour, what was he supposed to do about it? What was he supposed to do if Tony didn't tell him anything...

".. Can you even understand what I'm sayin' to you?"

Miracle, or just the opposite? For someone who'd taken a shot to the head he looked remarkably unharmed, though the bloody rags left behind might suggest otherwise. As well, the patches of hair distinctly shorter than the others, as if in the process of growing back but not quite finished. There was enough evidence that there had been an injury, but the injury itself seemed mostly gone.

Aside from the slightly slurred and nonsensical speech.

Tony didn't like running headlong into danger, it scared the hell out of him and he wished he could stop. Honestly did, but as soon as that predator instinct kicked in he had no control. It was out of his hands and he had no idea how to stop it. If only his predecessor could give him some pointers, some of that experience, but he'd yet to receive anything very useful beyond being able to shoot with disturbing accuracy.

"Hn?" Words more words, the speech center had been damaged but the ability to understand language hadn't. He understood, he just found it difficult to formulate responses. "Yes." There, that was the right word wasn't it? Or was it wrong?

But, since he'd already had some sleep, perhaps he could force himself awake a little bit longer.

"Say." Keep talking, he's listening.

Well, the brain was a hell of a thing to have to put back together. At least he had enough of it left to actually do that.

What he said made sense, in its own way, so Richard curled his fingers around Tony's hand and ran the pad of his thumb across the boy's knuckles. Scolding him wouldn't do any good, this had all moved far beyond anything like that. He had to approach this differently, now, and hope that Tony could in fact understand him.

"A'right..." A sigh left him, his eyes closing for a moment. "I know this ain't all you. I know you wouldn't be gettin' yourself nearly killed every few months if everythin' was normal." He gave Tony's hand a light squeeze. "But hell, kid... you could at least tell me, so I'm not gettin' messages from Shou or L after hours of not knowin' where you are."

It hadn't only been once, or twice, but several times by now. He'd be lying if he said it wasn't wearing on his nerves. "You don't hafta tell me what you think right now, but I'd been wonderin' about moving over to Germany. Jus' for a while." He paused a moment.

"... Ain't as if gettin' back is difficult, right?"

He was definitely better off than he had been. Snarling ferally and lashing out at anyone within reach. That would have been the worst had Richard come in on that.

His mind was still not quite up to par, it was sluggish to process things like emotions and proper emotional response, but he understood Richard was hurt. He also understood that he was responsible for that pain, but the how and the why were still missing. As well as any proper words to offer comfort. What he did do was gently squeeze Richard's fingers in an attempt at reassurance. Tony was trying, it was just taking longer for translations to hit him.

"No," He agreed softly. Were he more articulate he'd have apologized, but perhaps it was best he not waste empty words. "Ger-man-y?" Slowly he spoke that word, rolling it around like he didn't quite comprehend it. Moving, permanently? Perhaps that wouldn't be such a bad idea, all things considered.

However now he wasn't exactly in the best state to make a decision. He'd get back to Richard on that. Tell him more?

Right now, he didn't expect nor need any more than that silent offer of reassurance. He clasped Tony's hand in both of his and reminded himself that he couldn't expect too much of the kid right now; that maybe this would be better tackled when he could manage more than single syllable responses.

"Yeah," he said, quietly, shoulders hunched and frame pitched slightly forwards, as if what he was saying was a secret to be kept between the two of them. At least, for now.

"Not permanent, like. Just for a while. I gotta get you out of all this shit."

That would probably be for the best. Odds were he wouldn't remember much of this later, once everything was pieced back together. In the meantime he just needed rest, and then he'd need a lot of food. But that would come later.

Yes, very secret, very safe.

"Hn..." Whether that was agreement or not was hard to say. "Head hurts." Hey, look, two words! Some small bit of awareness was returning to him, forced to the forefront as he focused on concentrating on Richard's words. "You ok?"

Later. There was going to be a later, and he couldn't possibly be more grateful for that.

When Richard had come in here he'd been prepared to say a lot of things, even if Tony couldn't respond, but seeing him like this.. he was really just beyond relieved that he was still alive. That he was also regaining some kind of coherence was a plus, too.

"... I'll be fine, kiddo. Don't worry about me just get yourself patched up." He gave Tony's hand a light squeeze. "I'm gonna go talk to L, but I'll be back."

There was definitely going to be a later. A little sleep, a little to eat, and he'd start being himself again. After all who was to say his healing would simply stop, given that he honestly shouldn't have survived this injury in the first place?

They would definitely need a talk later, but it was probably best to wait until he was capable of coherency and fully understanding what's being said.

"Hn," A small grunt of agreement, he did pick himself up just enough to cast Richard a tired smile before flopping back down. Sleeping time now, more talking later. L would be a better candidate for explaining things probably.

Mission 7 - A Chance Meeting

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