savetheearth | Mission 7 - A Chance Meeting

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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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The breaks and cracks in Richard are impossible to miss. His composure is slipping, and while L realizes he's only human, he's right. Richard is Tony's father, and difficult or not, he took that burden on himself willingly. It stings to think of it that way; L knows that "burden" is a word that scares Tony, that makes him behave desperately and foolishly.

He watches Richard silently as the other man kicks the wall in frustration. "Is it so impossible that you don't know the situation?" he asks afterward, flint-eyed. "He doesn't tell you everything. I'm not a parent, or anything, but I'm pretty sure I can overcome some weirdness to discuss concerns about my friend's future. I can be accommodating. I can be flexible. I can talk about this anywhere. Where would you be more comfortable?" he inquires, doing his best to keep his tone neutral and free of any traces of arsenic.

"... Don't do that."

It's low, a soft and tired-sounding warning that doesn't go any further as he quickly glances back over his shoulder. Don't talk like he doesn't care enough to know. Don't talk like he doesn't care enough about Tony's future to discuss it. He never expects L to sugar coat anything and he wouldn't want him to - that's not how their friendship works - but right now...

Right now his mind is too scattered to appreciate any part of what L might be trying to do.

"You wanna talk about this? A'right, we'll talk about it. Let's siddown somewhere that don't feel as if the Houston Texans are about to run in after a game."

Then he pulls the door open, holding it for L to leave first and lead the way.

L certainly tends toward venom more often than honey, and if one were to press him, they'd get plenty of reasons. Hard living has made him hard, he has no patience or sympathy for self-pity, he is a doer and not a dreamer... and in many ways, it's probably for the best that he's not a parent. It's an attitude that adults respect, but it breaks children.

"Fine," he replies neutrally, standing and following Richard and passing when the other man stands aside to allow him to exit first. Richard's discomfort with the locker room admittedly doesn't make much sense to him; he knows that Richard has gotten used to more posh surroundings in recent years, but he won't find that anywhere in L's rough, work-in-progress academy. In fact, making it more comfortable and cheerful in general is something that people like Shou insist on helping him with.

If Richard simply has a fear of locker rooms, though, or a surprisingly prudish attitude about showers or commodes that L personally makes sure are scrubbed clean nearly daily, he will accommodate. He's stretched thin today, but he can at least take it that much further.

"Tell me where you want to go so I don't choose another spot that you find 'weird,'" he instructs crisply.

Under normal circumstances, Richard could handle this and likely better than most. Right now, every nerve is stripped and all he can think about is Tony, the teenager that he took into his home and swore to keep safe, almost dead in a room not too far away from where he is now. It's nothing to do with the surroundings (he seen and lived in worse), or even the fact that it's a locker room, really. He just needs a little more time to gather his thoughts and it's more easily done by walking.

And he could probably just have said that, but he's not exactly thinking straight. Everything feels like it's coming through a fog.

"... Outside. I gotta get some air." The thought only comes to him then and suddenly seems like the best idea in the world. "Please."

One great and cruel irony of L's existence is that he only begins to truly understand and get along with people when he knows their breaking points. Figuring out such a definite quantity often entails pushing them to those points, after which they either bond with or want nothing to do with him. It's a high-risk high-reward approach that makes a lot of sense for someone with L's extreme personality... but it can backfire, and tends to do so badly when it happens.

His eyes and face are hard, and remain that way, but he nods, turning wordlessly and making his way toward the nearest fire exit. He trusts Richard to follow him.

The problem with Richard's breaking point is that he's already long past it and holding himself together for the sake of the one person left who really needs him right now. It's a strange state to be in and he probably shouldn't have driven here at all (Shou telling him about the extent of the injury almost causing him to crash aside), but here he is, and now in the delicate company of someone who is now pressing him further.

Getting outside is the best idea that he could have had. As soon as the cold air hits him he feels better, more focused, and certainly not as penned-in as he had before.

He leans against the wall beside the door and breathes in, exhaling slowly.

"You got another smoke goin' spare?"

It's not until they actually are outside that L appreciates the openness and fresh air himself. He spends so much time in the school, breathing the dust and plaster and smoke from the occasional cigarette, that he sometimes forgets how invigorating it is to step out the door. Though he's not dressed for the weather, standing in his shirtsleeves, he doesn't complain about the cold, slipping his hands into his pockets and withdrawing his carton of cigarettes even before Richard asks for one.

"Of course. It's a habit now, so I wouldn't be caught without one."

He holds a cigarette and lighter in one hand, offering them both to Richard.

"Thanks."

Richard left his coat somewhere, probably up in the room where Tony is and the amount of time he spent living in a far warmer state hasn't left him well prepared for this kind of weather either. It doesn't feel like it matters much, really.

He lights up, handing the lighter back once the flame catches and exhaling a slow stream of smoke out into the air.

"A'right."

They're set far back from the road here. As places in a New Jersey city go, L's school is peaceful, and the sound of traffic is faint and distant as he draws out another cigarette for himself and lights it once Richard has handed back the lighter.

He's calmer now. Cautious. He won't speak until Richard is ready to, if that happens at all. Until then, he'll stifle the urge to shiver and take deep drags on his cigarette, holding his breaths each time.

He gives himself a minute, eyes shut save for the brief moments when he glances at the cigarette to make sure he doesn't poke himself in the face with it instead of fitting it between his lips.

Then, he casts a sidelong glance to L and slowly exhales a stream of mixed pale smoke and warm breath from the opposite corner of his mouth.

"Didn't mean to jump down your throat like that."

Lazarus inhales on his cigarette, content with the silence, not considering it uncomfortable. When Richard does speak, he glances the other man's way, ashing directly onto the pavement of his feet.

"We're all on-edge," he responds. "I won't think anything of it if you won't... it's my tendency to want to fix things, even when they should probably be left alone. I've never been able to leave a scab alone," he adds, in a pale attempt at a joke.

The silence, from his own point of view, is actually comforting in a strange sort of way. It lets him pull himself back together, to focus on what's going on right now outside of his own emotional reaction to it.

"Heh."

It's a poor joke, but it at least breaks the tension.

"Don't worry about it. Let's just... start over."

"Sounds good to me."

He's more than glad to accept. Most people would rather write him off completely than give him another chance to get along and play nice, no matter how unintentional his offensive nature is.

"I suppose you'll want to take him home sooner, rather than later. I have painkillers and towels and hot water here, but it's not equipped to be a hospital or recovery center. We make do, but we're still working on assembling the best surroundings and supplies."

If he thought that L really meant it then he wouldn't have offered that kind of second chance. If it had all come out of nowhere, the conversation would have gone differently up to this point, too, but the truth of it is that they're both strained to a point of fragile tempers and taking it out on each other isn't going to help.

He can let it go if L can.

"Mm. Soon as he's okay to move. Looks like he's healing himself up fine." He scratches the back of his neck slightly. "Shot to the head like that, it should'a killed him."

"It should have," he agrees softly, taking another deep drag on his cigarette. "We're all really lucky that it went the way it did, that he pulsed back what he did when he did. I think there shouldn't be a problem with him going home tonight; I'll start trying to figure out what to do with that Mafia creep who shot him, in the meantime."

"You know who it was?" All things considered, it might not be best to actually tell him who it was at this point in time, but he really wants to know. Resisting going after the person himself would be hard work, after all of this.

"Actually... just forget I even fuckin' thought that question."

Lazarus sighs in answer, shaking his head, glad that Richard isn't pressing.

"...yes, that's for the best," he allows. "We'll decide in due course and it will be the right thing, but if we act now out of passion we're likely to regret our actions later. I strongly advise against any sort of line of thinking."

Richard isn't so far gone yet that he can't handle his Others personal lack of self-restraint. He feels it pushing at him, sometimes, like an itch in the back of his mind and he knows it's not him. At least, it's not all him.

Some of it certainly is.

He puts the stub of his cigarette out against the wall behind him and keeps hold of it, flicking his thumbnail against the end of the filter. "Better make sure Tony doesn't start thinkin' along the same lines as soon as he can get up."

L's draws have slowed down in the last little while, and he's still got about half of his cigarette to go before he's finished with it. "I'm going to stay out a little longer," he says. "If you go with him and I don't see you again, I suppose I should say goodbye now."

Edited 2015-04-08 17:16 (UTC)

Richard nods, pushing away from the wall and giving L's shoulder a brief squeeze with one hand on his way past.

"If I don't see you, thanks for lookin' after my kid."

L's shoulder probably feels like solid bone under Richard's hand, but he doesn't waver or sway as a result of the other man's touch. He's steady enough and the brick wall at his back supporting him certainly helps with that.

"Don't mention it."

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Mission 7 - A Chance Meeting

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