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 Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2016 10:23 pm
>>>took 'em by surprise
xxxx >>worked my way uphill
██████
▬ A closed Thread
▬ New bffs bonding! Benjamin St.Jude and Zachary Murphy
▬ Setting: Zachs apartment. It's a pigsty.
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Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2016 10:33 pm
 B y :: t h e :: t i m e :: y o u :: h e a r :: t h e :: s i r e n :: i t ' s :: a l r e a d y :: t o o :: l a t e . :: O n e :: g o e s :: t o :: t h e :: m o r g u e :: a n d :: t h e :: o t h e r :: t o :: j a i l . :: O n e :: g u y ' s :: w a s t e d :: a n d :: t h e :: o t h e r ' s :: a :: w a s t e .
Zach had put his phone on silent.
He was sick of getting the calls. Lexi was bound to start hounding him, telling him not to go off and do exactly what she knew good and damn well he was gonna go do. Zach refused to let a woman bedridden in the hospital keep him from getting his rocks off as he damn well pleased. He also didn't want to have to listen to Biancas ringtone when she called to demand to know what he was doing and who he was with. She wouldn't like the answer, so Zach just wouldn't tell her. Zachary Murphy found that most personal problems tended to solve themselves, as long as you ignored them long enough. So he ignored the calls, ignored Jasmine telling him that maybe he should slow down, ignored the bills and multiple late rent notices piled up in the coffee-stained pile of junk mail sitting by the door, ignored the holster hanging on the coat rack, and the jacket that still had scorch marks and blood on the elbows and cuffs, ignored the stench of burning tar and rubber that still stung his nose, ignored the memory of skin slicked with fluid and seared with heat against his hands, and focused instead on the moment he was in. The pleasantly seething heat of the rum sliding down his throat and escaping from the corners of his lips, the feeling of that dark, soft skin underneath his hands, the sweet giggling noises that Jasmine made beneath him as he touched and teased, telling her to stop being such a worrywart, toying with that black curly hair between his fingers, the cool sheets against his back and the warmth beneath him. Those were the things that Zach could really feel and taste and revel in. The past was already gone, so why worry over it? Why fret over things he couldn't change when the fruit of the present was before him, so full and ripe and juicy? Zach lived by a few rather simple rules. Do what you can. Take what you can get. Enjoy it no matter what. So he did the best he could, took everything the world had to offer him, and damn it all, he reveled. There were so many things to take in and enjoy in the world, and so many people were so busy obsessing over useless things, things other than the present moment. It was enough to make a man weep. Sure, he could worry about the terms and conditions, could worry over what Bianca would say if she caught him tangled up in the sheets with the beautiful elf, skin the color of dark chocolate and hair as black as ink. But why bother? Bianca wasn't there, and Jasmine was. The future wasn't there yet, and the past wouldn't budge, but the present was right there in front of him. Soon, it would become the past as well, but all Zach could do about that was enjoy it while it was with him. Tomorrows problems were for tomorrows him.
When his phone buzzed loudly next to the futon, Zach poked his head out from under the covers, squinting at the face of the screen lighting up with the words,
[Stop ignoring me, you s**t head. Pick up the phone.<<] Zach rolled his eyes. Yeah, Lex, way to be convincing. But even as he thought it, he swiped up the phone with one hand and unlocked it, his body still tangled up with Jasmines, those soft fingers tracing along the outlines of his tattoo as he typed out his defiant message.
[>>No.] And tossed the phone onto the dirty carpet of the floor again, returning his attentions to where they belonged. Jasmine smirked up at him, those full lips of hers quirking just a little more to the right than to the left in that adorable way Zach loved.
"Don't you think it would be more effective to keep ignoring her? You know, not answer at all?" He smiled, shaking his head at her in a mock condescending manner.
"Maybe so, but I just want to make sure she knows I'm doing it on purpose." Of course Zach also knew that, if anything, sending that text would just piss Lexie off, and make her text him even more, but he'd just ignore her all the more. One perk of his old partner being in the hospital; she couldn't come banging on his door and ruining his fun like the damn killjoy that she was.
Even though she had officially retired after their last incident, Lexie, his former partner on the police force, always seemed compelled to play babysitter for Zach. Their last bust hadn't gone so well, and the wounds had landed her in the hospital. Lex wasn't a young damsel anymore, and her wife had been nagging her to consider retirement anyways. But Lex hadn't had any intentions of slowing down, until the doctors told her that the nerve damage was permanent, and she would need a cane to walk for the rest of her life even if she managed to graduate from the wheelchair and crutches. So she'd been quietly dismissed, and man, had she been pissed about it. For years, Lex had been Zachs mentor, and reason to his rhyme, and the method to his madness. She knew all of Zachs bad habits, as well as his weak spots. Somehow, he'd never been able to fool her, that ridiculously sturdy, perceptive human. She always knew how Zach liked to console himself after a rough day, and she knew what constituted a 'rough day' for the mage. So it seemed someone had told her about the crash that morning. Zach wondered who but, really, it could have been anyone. It was pretty common knowledge that Zach was the precincts token 'loose cannon cop' archtype, which was why, he assumed, he'd been made Lexies partner in the first place when he first started out in the force. Lexie wasn't quite as old as his father, a respected veteran on the force who, unlike Lex, had the chance to retire gracefully and with dignity, after a certain someone managed to convince him that it was time. But Zach didn't care about that, didn't care about that someone. It was in the past and the past didn't matter. What mattered was the present. Those lovely sounds, those long eyelashes, the- the damn phone buzzing again. Lex continuing to berate and lecture him, he was sure. Damn the woman, couldn't she just let him enjoy himself after a hard days work? He stretched out a bare foot from under the covers and kicked the device away, across the floor and under the coffee table, littered with empty beer and soda cans and old bills, an ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts, and empty condom wrappers sprinkled here and there like dirty party confetti. He kept on ignoring the problems, growling and murmuring through Jasmines giggles even as the phone buzzed and Biancas name flashed across the screen, and those simple words followed;
[Hey, I heard what happened. Are you okay?<<]
A few hours later it was dark out. The dingy apartment was quiet, aside from the white noise of radio static and the hushed voices of Zach and Jasmine murmuring quietly. Mostly it was Zach talking, and Jazz listening. Occasionally she offered input, but it was never anything substantial. It as part of why Zach only ever called Jazz for 'playtime' and could never take her seriously. The woman was gorgeous, no doubt, but she was about as interesting as a potato clock. She had one of those really basic personalities, kind of all around agreeable, no real solid opinions, all her political beliefs within the typical social norm and just... not super smart. It was a little hypocritical. Zach himself was far from the brightest bulb in the bunch, but he at least had the decency to think for himself, even if his thoughts were dumb. Girls like Jazz just repeated what the read on facebook. That was why Bianca was his girl, and Jazzie was just a side piece. Bianca was worlds smarter than Zach was. Zach never found it strange, his habit of whittling out exactly how the girls he slept with were inferior to his girlfriend after sleeping with them, and then turning around and finding another one to get under the next time Bia had another overnight shift. Zach was not a huge fan of self-reflection. If he focused on anything other than what was immediately before him, he was afraid of what he'd see. So he relaxed and reclined, enjoyed the dreamy way Jazz watched him as he talked about idle philosophy, when there was a loud rapping on his door. Zach started, scowling as he glanced up at the entry hallway. What the hell? It was the twenty-first century, who the hell knocked on doors anymore? When you wanted someone, you called them! Oh, right. Muttering under his breath, he stretched his upper body off of the futon, walking his hands along the carpet without relinquishing his butts place in the warm folds of the sheets and stretching his fingers out, groping along until he felt the smooth surface of his phone in his grip. He pulled himself back and clicked on the screen as the knock came again, louder this time. He scrolled through the slew of messages. Most of them were Lex telling him off. Two were from Bianca, asking if he was okay, and where he was. Ugh, how could she make him feel bad when she wasn't even trying to?? But it sounded like she was still at work, and anyway, she had a key to the apartment, she wouldn't need to knock. It sounded like too strong of a knock to be his little fairy anyways. So was it Lex? No, that was impossible. The last time he checked, whatever asshats owned the building didn't give a ******** about the disabled, and the iron steps leading up to his door were still not wheelchair accessible. No one else had been sending him messages. for a moment, he felt a flash of anxiety. It couldn't be... could it? It had better not be that ********, banging away at his door like he owed him something. that damn knocking just wouldn't stop! Swearing, he disentangled himself from Jasmine, who pouted at him.
"Who is it?"
He growled, not letting on to the fact that he had a sneaking suspicion that it was the last person in the world he wanted to see. It had better not be him. It had better not be that ******** coming around like he owned the place. The only way he would be here was if he needed something from him, and Zach would be damned if he gave that a*****e anything other than a black eye. He haphazardly yanked on a pair of jeans as he moved towards the door, but didn't bother zipping them up or doing the belt that hung loosely from the loops about his waist. In his mind he started running through all the things he'd say to that son of a b***h, if it really was him, as he undid the chain and latch on the door and swung it open. The scowling face that greeted him wasn't the one he had been expecting. But he only got a glimpse of it. As he opened his mouth to tell him to ******** off, there was a flash of movement and even as Zach recoiled he felt the crushing weight collide with his face. An elbow, a forearm, a fist, Zach couldn't tell which, but whatever the stranger was hitting him with it made contact with his nose with a sickening crunch, sending the officer staggering backwards with a shout, bringing his hands up to cover his face. He could already feel hot blood pouring out of his nostrils.
Jasmine called from the den, clutching the sheets up to her chest, voice quavering with obvious fear and anxiety. But Zach had neither the time nor the patience to console her. As the home invader struck again, so quickly within striking distance, Zach took it in stride this time. He moved to one side as a fist lashed out, and struck back, sweeping the blow aside with a forearm and stepping forward into him. In in instant as he moved, he pointed two fingers out, gathering an electric charge in the tips as he lashed out, aiming to strike the stranger in the gut. But, it seemed, he knew what he was doing, too, moving to sweep aside Zachs blow, but what the cop needed wasn't necessarily force, but contact. As soon as the attacker countered Zachs hand, the moment the skin brushed, the electricity surged outward. He sneered, victoriously, as he saw the flash of light, watched his attackers body flinch and recoil at the electric current rushing through him. It was far from the most powerful voltage Zach could have mustered, but it was definitely enough to put a normal person down. It gave Zach what he wanted, forced the attacker to move back, put a gap between them again to get away from the stinging electricity, and there was a heavy thud of something falling to the floor. Unfortunately, it seemed that this guy wasn't a normal person, as he stayed on his feet even after the shock, despite what sounded like his falling over. But everything was a blur, was happening too fast for Zach to question it. He removed his hand from his face, grinning like some kind of mad hatter as he slapped his hand against the wall, leaving the blood to rush down his mouth and run off of his chin and painting a bloody handprint on the wall. He quickly drew out a surge of electricity from the wires running through the walls, causing the lights to flicker and the grumpy neighbor on the other side of the wall to curse at Zach for what must have been the hundredth time. He allowed the electricity to run amock over his body, the energy snapping and crackling in visible bursts across his skin, keeping his pointed fingers pointed at the attacker, ready to loose a volley of electricity at him from a safe distance. But he didn't. Not yet.
"Awright you big ********, who the hell sent you??" Zach had been forced back to the point where the narrow entry hallway opened up into the den, where Jasmine sat shivering on the futon, clutching the sheets around her naked form. when she caught a glimpse of the blood on Zachs face and the hulking figure of the invader before him, she began to cry and shriek,
"Oh my god, oh my god!!" Zach snapped over his shoulder at her, never taking his eyes off of the attacker,
"Jazzie, Shut the ******** up!" But when the stranger moved again, Zach noticed that his gait was off, different. He'd been so focused on the attackers eyes, so full of anger and malice, locked on his all the while, he hadn't noticed before... his arm was gone.
There was a flash of images for a nanosecond in Zachs' brain. Twisted metal. Fire. Blood. The black and red mixing on steaming pavement. Reaching for the outstretched hand and it just.... came off.
The arm was lying on the floor, just behind the attacker. There was no blood. Zachs eyes flicked frantically back and fourth, between the thug and the fallen limb. what. what? What?? He studied the place where the arm was supposed to sit. There was just... tissue, twisted and contorted, scarred over and sunken in, unnatural in its shape, unlike quite anything Zach had seen. He stared, trying to make sense of the scene.
"What in the hell is th-" Before the words could escape his lips the room was spinning. There was a loud CRACK of bone colliding with his jaw, and he went sprawling to the floor, falling into the coffee table and breaking it, cheap wood splintering beneath Zachs weight as he crashed down through it with a grunt. Jasmine screamed again. Pulling himself out of the splinters with a groan, Zach spit blood with a grimace, locking angry eyes on the home invader and snarling.
"Ngh, dammit... woman! I said shut it!!" He pointed his fingers again, as if he were miming holding a gun. electricity cracked loudly around his outstretched fingers, practically glowing with all the energy he'd stolen through the wall. "Not another step, or I'll fry you like a ******** egg, Horseface." As he pulled himself onto his feet again, stepping out of the mess that used to be the coffee table (and everything on it), he felt heat roll down the side of his face, and realized he must have cut his forehead on the table when he fell. He blinked furiously, trying to keep the blood out of his eye. The last thing he needed was to have his vision obscured. "Now answer me, you s**t, who the ******** sent you!?"
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Posted: Fri Sep 09, 2016 12:16 am
____________________________ii______________________________________________________________CAN'T RECALL HOW WE LOST OUR INNOCENCE
He'd been ignoring his phone since the night before. It was one of the many mistakes Benjamin had made in his life, and it would cost him. Not as much as mistaking Leon for his brother. Not as much as everything that avalanched into place after that happened. But there was a price. Because there were things in this world that Ben just didn't do, and he had done so many of them in the last twenty-four hours. Inevitable, now, that the pendulum had to swing back the other way. And when it did, it wasn't with the harmless ticktocktick of the clock, but the devastation of a wrecking ball.
He should have left the fairy unconscious in the corridor, to be picked up by whoever lived in the apartment Leon had stepped out of. Should have beaten the other man until his head lolled on the weak stem of his neck and there was no hope of those golden eyes fixing on him with recognition. Should have driven him out of town and rolled him out of the Pullman on the side of the road, to wander back on foot with broken wings. That was what he'd have done to Noel, probably, if Ben had come across the right Fenwick. And as it was, the one he had found wasn't the little lamb he'd known in boyhood. This one was an ex-con strung out on pills, working for Crownless to pay off the debt of his shortened sentence. This one was lean with muscle, and marked with deep blue ink, and his edges were sharp and cold when his temper turned. He ignored his favorite foods and only stuck around to sate his addiction and asked to be broken as though it were his favorite thing in the world. Whatever he said about the Dust only lasting a few minutes, he was wrong or lying. There was no other reason for what had happened. There had never been any feeling there, deeply buried, hidden, remembered only in moments when Ben was alone and vulnerable. The metalmancer had turned away during Avasaad's examination because he didn't want to look at Leon. That was all. There had been no worry about his own response to the fairy's body, bruised and bare, because he had never been attracted to the ivorette. Not before, not now, not ever. For all his frailty, the lawyer was still a man, and Benjamin wasn't a f*****t. In fact, he hated Leon now the same way he hated Noel. What each of the twins had done was lower his inhibitions and ignore his personal requests. He'd told the fairy to go into the other room, to lock the door, but Leon hadn't listened, and the brunette hadn't been in his right mind. If he had been, he'd have struck that pale, battered frame far harder-- would have punished him the way Noel had been punished, left bleeding in an alley, to struggle back to whatever rock he'd crawled from under.
But his biggest mistake hadn't been in being swept up in the golden cloud that had shuddered out of Leon's wings, even if it had made him behave in ways he never should. Offer things he could never give. Not to another man. It hadn't even been in ignoring the texts and emails that brimmed over on his phone--
Westchester seems to be a good fit. He hates the uniforms, but he's going to hate that wherever he goes.
Father has asked about last night's meeting. Is there a reason I have no information to give him?
Lyn is down my neck about where you are. Everything okay?
It's very simple, Benjamin. The elf either paid or did not pay.
Are these concepts too difficult, or do I need to send Charles?
You live with that phone in your hand and you can't give me some input about our son's future?
I hope whatever you're tied up with is important.
Answer your ******** phone, Ben.
All of that was bad enough. He'd needed to sit there behind the Pullman's wheel, parked in the lot of the apartment building, scrolling through page after page of bullshit. Yes, Lyn. I saw the elf. He couldn't pay. I almost ripped his jaw off his face, but figured then he'd bleed to death, and you can't collect from a corpse. But what he thumbed across the screen of the phone was: Account not yet settled. Insufficient funds. Final notice delivered. Neither his father nor his eldest brother would like it, especially after so many hours of silence. They would demand an explanation and he would have to omit almost everything that had happened. Although, Lyndon at least got that many words out of the metalmancer. All Charles received was, I'm good. His younger brother was a better sport about it than the older one, though. Charlie shot back an eyeroll gif and left it at that. And although Ben should have responded to his wife, corrected the assumption that hung all over her missed phonecalls and ignored texts, he really couldn't. What was there to say? I know you're thinking I was with another woman last night, but you're wrong, at least about the gender. That would go over about as well as the alternative, which was: If you wanted my input you would have listened when I told you I didn't want Nic shoved off to some boarding school. He should be here, where is family is. But of course, they'd already had a fight about that, and maybe Benjamin's opinions on the issue were a little skewed. His own stint at school away from home had been a two-year long punishment, used to pressure him into giving up something he'd wanted very much at the time. And now? Well. What he'd wanted didn't exist anymore.
But he'd made the mistake. The worst mistake. Stopping, when Leon called out to him. Staying there and staring at the tiny, flittering figure of the ivorette, almost identical to how he'd been years ago, shrinking down to dance on Ben's palm. Delicate as a music-box miniature, but holding open the door in the brunette's mind that was trying so hard to swing closed. Hovering there, looking like not a single day had passed, and breaking his sentence in half so that when he flew away the ghost of it was still there, sticking in Ben's brain like a rusty nail.
I was always..
What? Pure and sweet and innocent. A little crybaby who seemed utterly unaware of his own beauty, his capacity to draw the eyes of others. Whip smart and a bit socially inept at times, hiding behind Noel's confidence and charisma while simultaneously shouldering a lot of the work. But those things didn't hold true anymore, did they? No. Not a bit. Not any of it. That person was gone. That person had gone into prison like it was a cocoon and had come out bearing scars that made Ben see red. Had come out knowing how to do those sinful, delightful things with his mouth that of course he had learned in the intervening years, what did Ben think would happen, and it didn't matter and it wasn't as though he cared about that. Because he wasn't. He wasn't. He had never been.
The email came while his hands were wrapped around the steering wheel, the left one curled tight enough to make the material creak and whine. Just a blip of sound, but it caught the mage's attention and diverted the train of thought that told him to walk into the apartment complex's lobby, ride the elevator up, and drink himself into a stupor. Wrench apart the couch where he'd checked the fairy's wounds, and the chair where he'd sat to eat his few mouthfuls of breakfast. Break the bed to pieces, destroy every piece of linen, every pillow, every inch of abused mattress. Stride into the bathroom and smash the mirror that had witnessed Leon in his arms, held so carefully, as though the fairy was still something perfect and sacrosanct. He could crack the porcelain of the bath, crumble it between his metal fingers. Rip down the center of the towel that had touched the ivorette's skin. And then? Then. The painting. That watercolor which took up the bedroom's wall. In case of emergency, break. He had the strength to do all of those things, and the money to pay for the damage once it had been done. And after, he would never go back. Not once.
The email was all that prevented it. A tiny mechanical blip followed by a white screen that held none of the usual cryptic code. Just an address. No hint of what to expect or how much pressure to apply. Father was going to send him in blind. It had all the sting of a punishment, not just because of the passive aggressive order, delivered without the slightest of niceties. No, the message was actually very clear. Go. I don't really care what happens to you.
So he went.
Ben was the good son. He was the one who followed orders, the one who had only ever tried once to step outside Father's influence. But his small rebellion was long since passed and this was two birds with one stone territory. Follow orders and break something. Prove that he had control, that he was stronger, that he didn't need a goddamn thing. So the car slid through traffic and when that part was over Ben moved up the metal stairway with deceptive grace, and Leon Fenwick was the furthest thing in the world from his mind.
Because Ben was building a wall, and some other sad ******** was going to have to pay for it.
When the door finally opened, it was hard to tell if the place was an apartment or a landfill, but the metalmancer didn't bother to waste his focus on the scenery. His merciful right fist crossed the tenant's face almost as a reflex, bursting the guy's nose like a ripe tomato. The follow through would have sent Ben's elbow crashing into the other man's temple, but he was already staggering back, giving ground, and the brunette filled the space gladly. He was taller by a hair and broader, and maybe later Ben would lament how much of a bully he had been, but not now. Not with his eyes narrowing down to focus on his target. It seemed a last ditch effort at home defense, the way the kid kicked at the door, but Benjamin didn't even bother to catch it. Just let it rebound off of his arm as he moved forward, kicked it automatically shut without looking. And he didn't for a single moment think, I wonder if this guy will wind up at Avasaad's when this is over. He didn't feel any regret about the woman in the other room hearing all this, sounding terrified as she asked after her boyfriend's safety. The brunette simply never stopped moving forward, even when his opponent began to show a modicum of skill, getting inside Ben's reach. The mage brought his left arm into play, using it as a block for the other man's blow, and immediately learned his mistake.
No foreknowledge meant so ability to prepare. If he'd known what the tenant was, he would have known to avoid contact. Scrapping with Nat as a kid had taught the metalmancer just how susceptible he was to shocks. Unfortunately, the kid with the broken nose hadn't announced his specialty, so Ben could only jerk backward as his body spasmed and tensed sharply, struck by the surge of energy. His focus snapped, and the conduit for his magic dropped to the floor as he fought to remain on his feet.
The item he used to concentrate his power. His left arm. The titanium prosthetic was emancipated from his control just that easily, and the weight of it fell abruptly away, tearing through the false skin that Ben always seamed so carefully against his body, taking the sleeve of his sweater with it. The result was the humiliating reality of the brunette's form-- a huge section of shoulder and chest missing, pitted with hard scar tissue where the organic limb had been torn free years ago. Disgust rolled through him at what it must look like, exposed like this, to a stranger. Weakness. He was showing weakness. Showing how part of his clavicle and the shoulder socket were conspicuously missing. Not a clean amputation. His arm had been torn free, twisted loose, and the result was this monstrosity. And the kid had been so cocky, so intent on gathering more power, before he realized what he was looking at, what he was seeing. Ben ignored the threat of all that collected electricity, continued his forward advance almost without thinking about it at all. Every movement was strange without the need to counterbalance the weight of the prosthetic, and the result was that he struck the other mage harder even than he meant to. Sent the guy flying. Felt a grim satisfaction in the knowledge that even like this he could inflict damage.
Not another step, or I'll fry you like a ******** egg, Horseface.
And Ben's eyes shifted, from the fallen man's face to his outstretched hand. The sound of the sparks was a warning, an indication that the other could do what he said. If nothing else, he had to admit that the guy had guts. Laying amongst the remnants of his coffee table, in a thousand disgusting kinds of debris, blood sheeting down his face, the kid still had the balls to make a threat and work his way to his feet.
Now answer me, you s**t, who the ******** sent you!?
Had Lyndon really not bothered to send this moron a notice? Or was it here somewhere under a pile of garbage, going ignored? When he spoke, the metalmancer's voice was flat. Unimpressed, it seemed, by the electricity being leveled straight at his chest.
"Your landlord sent me, a*****e. Seems someone doesn't understand what a final notice is, so here I am to remind you. And the day I've had, you might want to amp it up a bit more, because I swear to Christ-- you shock me again, and it better kill me." Almost as an afterthought, Ben snagged the ruined remains of his sweater and dragged it over his head, as though the bloodied tenant couldn't possibly manage to hurt him in the second it took to throw the destroyed garment across the room. Underneath it, the tanktop he was wearing looked strange without a second arm to fill it, but it was better, at least, than the other item had been. "So, you can pay your rent, like an adult would. Or you can get evicted. Whichever one you pick, do it fast. I could barely stand to look at you before I broke your face."
OOC: Sorry this took all night to get posted. Everybody and their mother decided it was time to live in my room while I was writing. :/
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Posted: Fri Sep 09, 2016 1:07 pm
B y :: t h e :: t i m e :: y o u :: h e a r :: t h e :: s i r e n :: i t ' s :: a l r e a d y :: t o o :: l a t e . :: O n e :: g o e s :: t o :: t h e :: m o r g u e :: a n d :: t h e :: o t h e r :: t o :: j a i l . :: O n e :: g u y ' s :: w a s t e d :: a n d :: t h e :: o t h e r ' s :: a :: w a s t e .
Zach had most certainly been in worse pain, and really, this had to be at least the third time his nose had been broken. But that didn't make him any happier about it. Not to mention his attempts at keeping the blood out of his eye were continually futile. Judging by the stinging on his scalp, it was probably a relatively small cut; a byproduct of the splintered wood. The problem was just that head injuries of any kind always tended to bleed like hell. So he kept the one unobstructed eye trained on the thug who'd forced his way into his home, invading his safe place like a burrowing parasite. Zach recalled the multiple cases of home invasion he'd handled. Most were just botched robberies, desperate junkies trying to find crap to hock for quick cash who thought the home was unoccupied at the time, who turned tail and ran the moment they discovered otherwise. A few were intentional, mostly crimes of passion. Drunk ex-boyfriends banging doors down while the girlfriends called the officers to the scene. But rarely, occasionally, home invasions were more sinister. They started out violent from the get-go and tended to end in rape, murder, or both. Glancing over the nameless thug again, Zach really hoped that this was really just intended to be a murder, especially since Jasmine was there with him. That was what really made Zach desperate, careful. Had he been alone, Zach could have acted with abandon, charged head-on and sent electric currents flying in every direction, forcing the stranger back and into submission. But Jasmine was here. That meant not only that he had to watch where he volleyed his electric shocks, but that he had to make sure he was never incapacitated. If he was, it wouldn't be only his life at stake. Whoever had sent him did not have kind intentions, and depending on what those intentions were, it could mean something very sinister for Jasmine, as a witness. Things might get even worse if this psycho mistook her for his girlfriend. Zach was already running through contingency plans in his head. There was no back door, but there was a back window that didn't have bars on it in the kitchen. He was certain he could stall the thug for long enough for Jazz to escape, providing she did so quickly and without hesitation. It would mean going out in nothing but a sheet, but that definitely beat being kidnapped by some shadowy mafia gangster and used for whatever sick purposes this invasion was devised around. But Jasmine was slow-witted, and she might be frozen in fear. So Zach considered the possibility that taking the thug down was his best option. He flicked his gaze to the side for half an instant, towards the door to his bedroom, ajar. His weapon was in there, leaning against his bedstand. He was certain that Spitfire would take care of this guy in one shot, two max, if his aim was off (and it never was). But the enchanted hand cannon may as well have been in China. He could have bolted for it, might have even been able to grab it before the stranger reached him, but that would leave Jasmine defenseless, and that wasn't an acceptable trade-off.
So Zach kept himself firmly rooted to the spot, in between Jasmine and the home invader. His skull, normally so bursting at the seams with thoughts, with stupid witty banter and bitter words, with snark and pomp and all of the things he could say and do to cover himself up, was muffled and dim, all overpowered by a single imperative that was less thought and more feeling and instinct; Defend. It was what had driven him into the police academy as much as trying to please his father, despite how much he said to the contrary these days. However much Zach touted and bragged and feigned indifference, in moments like these it was all he could think, all he could feel. Defend. There was someone behind him who couldn't manage alone. They needed him. If he had to become an insurmountable barrier then that's what he would become. He wouldn't let the attacker cross. Jasmine was right behind him, so he could yield no more ground. He had his knees bent, toes pointed out from each other, a solid stance. But when the stranger opened his mouth to speak, Zach froze, hardly believing what he was hearing. So, just to be sure he was hearing correctly, he repeated,
"The.... ******** landlord? The cocksucking ******** LANDLORD!? Are you shitting me!?" immediately Zach dropped his fighting stance, throwing his hands up into the air in frustration. "All of this ******** s**t is about ******** RENT!? For ******** sake you gigantic t**t, I thought you were a ******** gangster with some ******** vendetta or something! I was about to kill you you ******** psychopath!!" Completely disregarding his own sorry state, Zach turned away from the stranger and towards Jasmine. The elf was trembling, terrified and still clutching the sheets around her, white-knuckled and wide-eyed. "All right Jazzie, sweetheart, I think it's time for you to go." Nervously, she glanced back and fourth from Zach to the intruder. Zach ignored the look, swiping up articles of her clothing from here and there on the floor and futon, shaking splinters off of a silky red top before shoving them to her in a bundle rather forcefully, still largely ignoring the home-invader who turned out to be a damn rent collector. He placed a hand on her shoulder, gently but firmly guiding her off of the futon and draping the other end of the sheet over her other shoulder as he ushered her across the room and into the bathroom. As soon as the door closed behind her, Zach whirled around to face the thug. He opened his mouth to say something but paused, wincing. "Ugh, hold on a sec." He yanked up a shirt from the floor, pinching his eyebrows and screwing his eyes closed. He pinched his nose between his thumb and forefinger where it was bent a little crooked at the bridge. He took a deep breath and winced as he cracked it back into alignment, swearing loudly and bringing the shirt up to his nose to stifle the fresh wave of blood that left him feeling a little woozy for half a moment before he straightened up again and glared at the nameless thug, wiping some of the blood off of his forehead with the back of his hand. "Awright, ******** you think you are. I'm gonna go grab my wallet so I can get you the ******** offa my back, so don't pull any s**t just 'coz I'm walking off." He said it as he stalked past the stranger again, words only somewhat muffled by the cloth pressed against his face, dingy grey rapidly turning dark shades of red and brown. He crossed the room towards the open door of his bedroom. Spitfire was in there, so easily within reach, but... he stopped in front of the door. Jasmine was still in the bathroom. He doubted the flimsy doors of the apartment could stop the brawny thug from going anywhere he damn well pleased. Even if he was who he said he was, there for rent and nothing else, he couldn't trust him that close. His eyes went to the floor, down around... there. Muttering, he turned around and nudged some of the debris and ash out of the way with his foot and swiped the wallet off of the floor, shaking some clinging ash from it.
He withdrew the old shirt from his face as he straightened himself up again. The worst of the bleeding had stopped, leaving his lips and chin a mess of brown crust and lingering slick red. He snorted a few small congealed bits from his nostril as he started thumbing through his wallet, digging through the debris of the table with a foot as he spoke again, tone deceptively casual.
"So, I'm guessing you're aware that extortion is a federal offense, right?" He didn't raise his eyes as he said it, continuing to turn over debris from his shattered coffee table until he found what he was looking for. "As is breaking and entering, assault and battery, aggravated assault, home invasion.." he scooped up the handcuff he'd dug out of the mess that used to be his coffee table and twirled it around his finger as he flipped his wallet around, letting it hang open so that the home invader could clearly see the police badge and I.D. inside. "And assaulting an officer of the law. And for these charges, I'm placing you under arrest. Please keep your remaining hand where I can see it, jackoff."
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Posted: Sun Sep 11, 2016 4:26 pm
____________________________ii______________________________________________________________CAN'T RECALL HOW WE LOST OUR INNOCENCE
This entire day was a shitshow.
Days. The last two days.
He'd needed a fight, had gotten a shadow of one, and was still coming out of it completely unsatisfied. Part of Ben wished that he could just keep whaling on the kid. Drive his fists and knees and elbows into the little punk's face until it was a red ruin and he stopped moving and gave the metalmancer something more pressing to worry about. Nothing else would matter once he'd committed a murder. Everything would be devoted to trying to cover it up, which of course would be impossible on his own. So, really, better not pummel the other mage's head into a pulp, because even if his temper could carry him through it there would be the matter of the girl in the sheet, and Ben had never dealt a woman more than a backhand. To her credit, the girl in question had buried a broken ceramic hummingbird in his thigh, so she'd almost deserved it. Nothing about the situation had done anything to alleviate the sharp needling feeling at the center of his chest. Restless anger and frustration, loathing, doubt, guilt. What he should have done was go back to the apartment and the bottle of whiskey in the kitchen cabinet. Or, worse, back to the estate to wait for Charlotte to arrive, angry and strident after his days of silence, and let the argument turn to something that would leave her sated and smug, believing that she was at her most irresistible when she antagonized. Prove to himself where he stood and what choices he'd made and who he was, goddamnit. Play his role. He was a husband, so act like one. He was a brute and an enforcer, so shoot the bleeding tenant a look of contempt when the other mage talked so casually about almost killing him. Oh, sure. Electrocution. Stop the heartbeat and char the skin and short out the brain. That was a thing that could happen, but Ben had never been good at fear, which he'd been told all his life was weakness, softness. He had learned to compensate with violence to prove that he was a whole, complete creature, and if the bloodstained b*****d had pushed it further Benjamin would have barreled into it. Instead, bigmouth nudged his terrified girlfriend toward the bathroom, leaving the metalmancer free to collect his prosthesis.
A low sound of disgust left him at the sight of the melted and torn plastiskin, the titanium showing through, cold and gleaming. Mocking. The illusion of it completely dispelled to show the interlocking plates he'd formed across the surface, harder to move without the metal connected to his body. Already, the pain was starting to come back. Dull ache turning to a stabbing feeling that coursed down a limb which hadn't been there for almost twenty years. He'd constructed a new arm to suppress it, to divert what doctors called PLP, which was supposed to abate with time. Supposed to be intermittent. Supposed to be not that bad. Supposed to be treated with rehabilitative therapy and using a mirror box and processing what had happened and accepting it and letting go. Well, you know what ******** worked? Putting a metal limb around the phantom one. Giving structure to what his mind demanded would still exist. In almost twenty years, the prosthesis had been removed from him so rarely that each one was a dim reenactment of the initial event. And every time, no matter how it happened, the person Benjamin hated most in the world-- the person Benjamin blamed-- was his baby brother.
But the puny ink mage wasn't here. What the metalmancer had to contend with was the half-dressed delinquent whose nose he'd snapped. So while the tenant he'd come to menace-- Oh, c'mon, Ben. You rearranged his face. You're everything Avasaad said you are. It's not a wonder Leo's scared of you. This is what you do to people.-- floundered through dirty laundry to pick up an equally grimy shirt, the brunette stripped the remaining false skin from his prosthesis. Tore away the melted material that was supposed to help make him look normal. As far as Ben was concerned, that ruse was damaged. There was no mending it, not here and now, and the mage had never been good at greys. All or nothing. So he lifted his left arm with his right, fitting the shoulder into the pitted, scarred recess of his chest, and cocked his head to the side at an exaggerated angle, waiting for the pop. It didn't come, but the snap of bone from across the room was enough to jog the instinctual leap, enough to make the cold metal stay in place even once he let it go. More blood gushed from his victim's face as he put his nose back where it belonged, but Ben appeared supremely unconcerned by that. He was busy flexing his metal fingers, easing back into control of them.
I'm gonna go grab my wallet so I can get you the ******** offa my back
Well, wasn't that just an abrupt about-face from the kid who'd been talking about killing him a minute or two before? Ben's eyes narrowed, and he turned as the other man moved past him, suspicious of the sudden willingness to cooperate. Fear was something he was used to seeing, but this wasn't it. Anger and exasperation, as though the metalmancer were more annoyance than threat. It hadn't registered before, when Ben had simply needed to destroy something to work through his own frustrations. He'd brushed aside all of the taser's yammering completely, but that didn't mean he hadn't heard it. Now, with him out of the room and the possibility of further violence abating somewhat, there was the opportunity to put it together a bit better, to use his head. To snap together context clues with a resounding click.
Not afraid. Put himself in front of the girl. Not just accustomed to violence, then, but used to being a line of defense against it. Thought I was from one of the gangs, out to get him.
Ben had his phone out even before the little s**t started in on his litany of charges. His face was solidly blank, without a single hint of worry, although he did at least bother to look the other man in the face while he dialed. Once the tone sounded, Ben placed the sleek gadget to his ear, holding up his other hand-- all metal, no veneer of humanity now-- to signal Officer Smartass to just hold his horses for a second. It was a moment before a voice came through on the other end, but Benjamin didn't wait for his eldest brother to commence with pleasantries.
"Lyn, were you or were you not aware that you were sending me to lean on a cop?"
A pause, and the metalmancer could almost hear the smug satisfaction in Lyndon's voice. Hell, even Officer Shitforbrains could probably hear it, although he hadn't thumbed the button for speaker. The firstborn son of the St Jude family was as vicious as the magic he'd been born with, and his sense of humor was just as hard to stomach.
"That must have slipped Father's mind. I hope you were suitably respectful to the officer, Benjamin."
Clearly, he hoped just the opposite. The flat superiority of his tone told Ben everything he needed to know. Just as he'd surmised on receiving the email in the first place, this was a setup. A test. A punishment. The rolled up newspaper brought down to startle a badly behaved dog. Lyndon was in the business of asset protection and allocation, and for a little while one of those assets-- the littlest brother born from Niccola-- had gone missing. Hadn't responded to orders, hadn't filed the proper report.
Ben shot the electric mage a look, glancing over the mess of blood that had been haphazardly wiped across his entire visage by this point. "Let's just say I'd have shown more respect if you'd offered me half a ******** clue what I was walking into."
Well, perhaps not respect exactly. The law was, in the metalmancer's experience, a mutable thing that changed depending on how much money was offered and how much status a citizen had. He'd never been taught to accept consequences. From his father's point of view, that would denote a complete lack of ability when it came to negotiation, a willingness to roll over without asserting one's own will. Fortunately, the family had handled worse than this before. Some of Nathaniel's public indiscretions made this one look like a day at the museum. This would only proceed as far as Lyndon let it, but the poisoner on the other end of the line let a long silence drag out between them. Trying to make Ben sweat. Trying to make him believe that a lack of cooperation lasting less than two days was enough to merit the embarrassment the entire family would face if--
"Language. And perhaps you will consider this a lesson about the importance of being communicative."
"Perhaps you will consider this a situation where you could have gotten me arrested." Completely ignoring the fact that the man whose nose he'd broken fully intended to do just that. It seemed that, even now, Benjamin felt that the situation had already been resolved.
"I will make the appropriate calls, Benjamin. Now, do I need to prompt you for gratitude? "
God, he hated Lyn sometimes. The man was like a migraine in physical form. Or maybe that was the taser with the broken nose, sniping constantly as Ben tried to carry on the conversation.
"Thank you, Lyndon." He bit the words out, trying to stay neutral, trying not to let the anger creep back up on him. But, mercifully, it appeared that that was enough for big brother, because the line went dead without further ago, freeing the brunette to slip the phone back into his pocket. Didn't matter. His temper was simmering again, just under the surface, as he turned his full attention back on the kid with the badge. If nothing else, at least the guy had shown spine in the way he'd handled being smashed in the face. He didn't really deserve any more violence, as much as Ben felt the need to keep on punching something. And just because Lyn had things handled, it didn't mean he needed to push it.
So he lifted his left hand, executing a vague half-wave, as though he meant to simply walk away, despite the cop's babbling about lawyers-- and there was an odd pang at that one, which Ben didn't like at all-- and charges. As far as the Tinman was concerned, business here was concluded. The rent would likely be subsumed as a further appeasement toward avoiding Ben's arrest, though if he knew Lyndon the poison mage would make further arrangements with his contacts at the SCPD anyway.
"It's been handled. I'd see somebody about that nose. Didn't look great before I broke it, but I didn't exactly improve it."
..And that's about when he got shocked again.
OOC: PS, if you want to know what Lyndon sounds like, he's totally Laurence Fishburne as Morpheus in The Matrix.
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Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2016 5:38 pm
B y :: t h e :: t i m e :: y o u :: h e a r :: t h e :: s i r e n :: i t ' s :: a l r e a d y :: t o o :: l a t e . :: O n e :: g o e s :: t o :: t h e :: m o r g u e :: a n d :: t h e :: o t h e r :: t o :: j a i l . :: O n e :: g u y ' s :: w a s t e d :: a n d :: t h e :: o t h e r ' s :: a :: w a s t e .
The term 'disrespectful a*****e' wasn't a new one. Hell, he dealt with them pretty much every day. From assholes demeaning him to a meter maid for going thirty over the limit, to drunkards literally spitting at him. These were things that Zach had been trained to handle; not a lot of people respected the ones who enforced the law. But Zach was not accustomed to said disrespectful assholes breaking into his apartment, busting his nose open, and then flipping out their damn cell phone after he told them he was under arrest. So he stood, stuck somewhere between fury and disbelief, as the metal man chattered away on his cell. He could feel his ears burn red as he clenched his teeth, watching the metalmancer make his call and have the gall to hold up that metal hand in a 'wait a minute' motion. Although, he had to admit, with the fake skin torn off the debt collector was much more intimidating. He hadn't exactly had time to appraise the strangers appearance before. But seeing the torn, discarded sweater on the floor, it wasn't exactly the kind of uniform that screamed 'terror' at you, even with the little flecks of Zachs blood on the cuff. The half-melted sheath of skin was, admittedly, a little more off-putting. He raised his eyes again to the intruder with the metal arm. The make was unusual. Zach had seen more than a few citizens and slaves with amputations and prosthetics. Most these days were largely plastic based so they weren't so easily tampered with. Seeing a full metal arm was unusual, but not nearly so unusual as the scars it was covering up. Zach was a typical officer, not an investigator or analyst. He only saw the horrific, bloody messes if he happened to be one of the first ones on the scene, and even then it was just his job to call the big guns in. So he was stumped as to what could have caused an injury like that. He could have justified the sunken in socket, if it had been some kind of amputation, but from the scars he got a glimpse of (you know, right before he won a one-way trip into the ******** coffee table) were nothing like any surgical scars. But even if they were, why would someone remove the entire joint? But the metal was covering it now. Plated, cold, dark, and admittedly menacing without it's false skin. He couldn't feel any kind of electric pulses coming from it, so he could only assume that he was a metal mage, controlling its movements with his abilities. That made Zach grit his teeth just a fraction harder. It reminded him of that guy. Come to think of it, that arrogant, holier-than-thou, dismissive attitude of his reminded Zach of him, too. It made him want to electrocute the ******** into next month. Or was that the obnoxious phone conversation he was trying to carry on over the sound of being arrested?
"Hey, ********, maybe you missed the memo but I said, 'You're under arrest.' You deaf?" He snapped his wallet shut, since the point had obviously already been made. He was undeterred, continuing to chatter away about how respectful he may or may not have been to a ******** cop. Zach tucked his wallet into the back pocket of his jeans, glaring all the while as he finally zipped them up and buttoned them. He had a feeling he was going to want all of his hatches battened down in a minute, if things kept going the way they looked to be. He clasped the handcuffs to a belt loop, since clearly compliance was not what he was getting here. So, police brutality was usually his next step. "That had better be your lawyer." He quipped, stepping sideways to lay a threatening hand on the wall, drawing yet more electricity from the wires in the walls with a series of loud pops. Again the lights flickered, and again there was muffled swearing from the other side of the wall. Almost as soon as the words left his lips he heard the one-armed wonder say the words
"could have gotten me arrested." At that he twitched his scarred eyebrow, folding in the middle two fingers of each hand and letting a thin line of electricity pass between his extended index and pinkie fingers.
"Excuse me, a*****e, you are being arrested!" With each passing moment that the intruder continued to ignore him Zachs anger grew. He was already forming the plan in his head. He'd electrocute the guy out of his wits, cuff him, shock him once more for good measure, call in the boys and lay every damn charge he could invent on the guy. See him keep that smug look on his face when he lost control of his bowels. There was no way in hell the guy was just gonna stroll out of here after breaking his nose, his table, and his brief good mood. He was already walking over to him, stalking through the shitstorm of ash and splintered wood, sucking some of the blood draining down the back of his throat to spit it into the mess, popping electricity sparking between his outstretched fingers, when the thug thanked 'Lyndon,' clicked off his phone, turned back towards him, and decided to open his fat mouth just one more time.
"It's been handled. I'd see somebody about that nose. Didn't look great before I broke it, but I didn't exactly improve it."
And at that, Zach actually smiled. The he raised up his right hand and let the electricity arc from his fingers and into the mage, enjoying the sound his body made when it hit the floor for the second time.
"You know, I'm generally against using force on a cripple, but for your sake I'll make a special exception." While he was still twitching and trying to regain control of his body, Zach planted the heel of his bare foot into the guys ribs, probably a lot harder than was necessary. "'Coz you know, my day hasn't been too ******** bright either, Tinman!" In the next moment, the room was a blur, and his stomach was dropping into his pelvis. It took a few nanoseconds longer for him to realize that the pressure on his ankle was him being grabbed and tossed across the room. Ah. That wasn't part of the plan. But the feeling of drywall shattering against his upper back, shoulders, and head, really helped drive home the point that the plan had ******** changed. With a grunt he fell to the floor, but this time he sprang back up. Lucky for him these apartments were shitty, and the drywall gave way much easier than his body did. The moment he was back on his feet though, there was something in his vision. He managed to jerk himself to one side just in time, feeling the breeze as the chunk of wood crashed into the broken wall behind him. He snapped his head up again to find the metalmancer on his feet, rage in his eyes and pieces of his god damn coffee table in his hands. ******** fantastic. That was just adding insult to injury. First he broke the table, and now he was going to throw chunks of it at him? Some people had no ******** manners. Zach dodged to one side again as another chunk of what used to be his table - goodbye, old friend - he sneered. "Really? You fight like a ******** woman!" He couldn't help but be reminded of a fight - well all right, a few fights - He'd had with his ex, Maisy. Maisy knew how to throw a mean curve ball, as well as any other loose object within arms reach. So Zach had some experience with random projectiles at close range, and talking between them as he dodged another chunk. A leg, maybe? "My ex had better aim than you!" Of course it's true what they say, pride goeth before the fall and all that. As soon as he said it a piece caught his shoulder, eliciting a string of swears as the splintered wood bit into his exposed skin. He bared his teeth and pointed his fingers like a gun again, firing a bolt of electricity across the room, but in the flurry of objects flying through the air, all he managed was to hit a piece of flung table and cause it to explode, sending splinters flying in every direction. Zach took the opportunity to sprint forward. The metal man may have Zach beaten in size, but firing long-range bolts was incredibly energy inefficient, not to mention it was difficult to aim. His best shot was actually getting close and pinning him with a surge as the same time. Unfortunately, t seemed like the intruder had a similar idea, and their bodies clashed in the middle of the room. Zach sent a jolt of electricity through his body the moment he felt contact, and he could feel his opponents muscles convulsing. Yet, somehow, the force he was pushing against didn't drop, never stopped moving. Instead he felt himself being shouldered sideways. He tried to push back, but this guy had weight on him. He was pushed back, like a hero in an action flick trying to stop a freight train with his hands, and felt his back slam into a wall, felt the wall give, and found himself pushed through it, landing on his back against the cold tile of... wait, was this his bathroom? Yeah. He snarled, bracing one arm against the tile floor and readying another volley of electricity when he heard the sound of a door clicking. Immediately he brought up both of his hands from where he was laying on the floor, placing the fingerstips of one hand against the palm of the other.
"Waitwaitwaitwait, time out." As if the entire brawl were just some kids game that they were free to pause and resume at will. As if the two grown men were playing tag rather than trying to disassamble each other. As if the man who forced his way into his home, broke his nose and his table, then used chunks of the latter to assault him, and had now punched a hole through his bathroom wall using him as a battering ram, would just stop mid-brawl just because Zach asked him to.
...and he did.
At first it just seemed like it might be a momentary hesitation, understandable confusion at the officer suddenly requesting a time out. But after a moments consideration, the tinman pulled back from him with a frown. Zach hadn't honestly expected it to work, but he wasn't going to look a gift horse(face) in the mouth. As he backed off, Zach nodded with a quick "Thanks. before pulling himself off of the floor and yanking his legs out of the smashed wood and drywall that used to be the divider between his bathroom and living room. He just felt grateful he hadn't been slammed into a support beam - that would have hurt much worse. He attempted to brush some of the rubble off of his shoulders, but it was clinging to his skin with his sweat and the blood from a few more minor cuts and lacerations. Mostly from ******** wood splinters. He had a feeling he was going to be digging wood and drywall out of his hair for weeks. So he gave up, stepping around the invader and oping to use the ******** door instead of smashing a god damn hole in the wall, like some people. He stepped back into the living room to see Jasmine timidly peeking out from the bathroom, clearly terrified by the sounds of continued fighting, and even more clearly not comforted by the sight of Zach, battered and dusty and bloody. He held a hand out to her as he crossed the room, opening the bathroom door a little more and waving at her to come on out.
"Jazzie, baby, this has been fun, but I think it's time for you to go."
"Uh..." Her eyes flicked to the hole in the wall. "A-are you sure? I mean.... should I call someone?" Zach shook his head, putting a hand on her back and guiding her gently towards the doorway, keeping himself between her and the invader at all times as he escorted her.
"No need sweetheart, we've got it handled. You just go on home, don't worry your pretty face about it." He opened the door for her even as the elf continued to hesitate. She glanced back a few more times as Zach smiled and waved her off down the metal steps before closing the door with a sigh. Well. At least he finally had a good excuse to kick her out this time. He walked back down the entryway to the decimated living room, exhaling loudly and putting his hands on his hips before turning to find the metalmancer there, expectant. Zach smiled.
"So! He said, clapping his hands together "Back to kicking each others asses?"
[[ooc; Lyn has a sexy voice no lie. ;TvT]]
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Posted: Tue Sep 27, 2016 5:08 pm
____________________________ii______________________________________________________________CAN'T RECALL HOW WE LOST OUR INNOCENCE
He hadn't been paying any attention, because with the call to Lyndon, Ben considered the entire situation resolved. Chapter closed. It was simply a fact that he was accustomed to things being handled when they went wrong. He came from money in one of the most corrupt cities in the country. There wasn't a single thing that couldn't be bought or paid for, if Father was to be believed. The only consequences the metalmancer had ever been forced to face came from in and around his own family. This was actually one of them, right here, right now. He'd been off the radar for too long, concerning himself with nothing but Leon-- Don't think about that. That didn't happen. Put in a box. Put it away. Now.-- and that was something too far outside the parameters set for his expected behavior. Enforce and report, those were the expectations. But he hadn't leaned hard enough on Cassandre, hadn't collected anything. No, he'd turned his rage on the fairy in the hallway instead, and spent his energy in ways that definitely couldn't be translated into dry, businesslike emails to his father. None of it had been in the plan, and if there was one thing Benjamin understood, it was that there was cause and effect. Toe the line, and you'd be fine, but either side could be dangerous. Too far right, too far left, you were going to eventually come across a landmine. And the mouthy cop, yammering on as the phonecall came to a close? Yeah. That was one of them.
Because Ben, however much he still wanted to shatter bones, was reining himself down. Coming away from the edge and back toward sanity. He didn't have time to keep tangling with the lightning bug, as satisfying as it would be to smash the other man completely flat. The apartment, as scuzzy as it was when he first came through the door, was a bigger mess now. Lyndon would write off the rent for a time-- the opposite of what Ben had been sent to do-- and furnish repairs, as well as the necessary bribes to heads far above this officer's. All in all, it was a loss. One that the family could more than afford, but still something the metalmancer would never hear the end of, even if it was the result of passive aggression on the parts of his father and eldest brother. From their perspective, it was just what happened when Ben didn't play his part the way he was expected to. So it was better to get out now, instead of seeing just how much more of the taser's face he could rearrange.
There weren't any rubberbands on his wrist for aversion therapy, but that was alright. He was in control. He wasn't stupid. His anger didn't have anything to do with the shitty apartment or the punk who didn't want to pay his rent. Those things were just a target for that anger, and his work was just a conduit for it. Everything was being sorted now, and Ben would ignore the smartass for the half-minute it would take to get back out the door. That's what would happen. He just needed to keep everything in his head in its proper box, tightly sealed, and remember what he had to accomplish.
But then the surge of energy hit him, and every muscle in his body seized, sending the brunette to the ground in a heap of spasming limbs. For a second, the heart in his chest throbbed painfully, its rhythm stuttering sharply before adjusting, and he couldn't register the foot that caught him in the side because he was too busy trying to figure out how to get another breath into his body. Was he dying? No. No, it just felt like that as the current played merry hell on him. Worse than the first time, because his prosthetic hadn't been in the way. Once all his nerves were back in order, there would be a burn high on his collar bone that would hurt like ********, but for now it was just the business of finding his feet. Cripple, the smug ******** standing above him had said.
So the cripple caught the foot resting on him with both hands, gripped the ankle and used it to shove the other man up and over, because if he didn't get the other mage away from him, there was a very real possibility that Ben would break his legs. It was satisfying, the way the drywall gave when hit by a living projectile, but of course that wasn't enough. Not nearly enough. He wanted to hear bones snapping under too much pressure. He wanted to send broken pieces of this little ******** furniture shearing through ribs and skull and leave a red ruin where the man had been. Every chunk of debris was fair game, thrown across the room with seething rage rather than anything approaching strategy. Part of the shattered coffee table. An overturned ashtray. What had, at one point, probably started life as some kind of floor lamp. This was a fight, but Ben didn't even care about winning. What he wanted was to destroy something, to break everything around him and use that as evidence that he was, comparatively, whole. Let the mouthy a*****e keep talking. Let him throw his shitty little taunts. He'd have a hard time of it when the metalmancer snapped his jaw in two. He'd learn all about being a cripple once Ben got ahold of him and brought the hammer of his fist down on one wrist, and then the other. Each knee, just a collection of loose gravel. Cripple? I'll show you a ******** cripple, you stupid sack of s**t. I'll ******** end you!
He didn't care how many of his projectiles missed their mark. Didn't care when lightning caught one of them and turned it into a mass of shrapnel. Didn't care when one of those pieces snagged across his cheekbone, not an inch from blinding his left eye, to leave that half of his face awash in blood. Ben moved forward as though none of those things mattered, even armed with the knowledge that clear contact was more in the cop's interest than his own. In those moments, the metalmancer didn't just hate the man he was charging, he hated everything. Electricity hit him again, and there wasn't a muscle in his body that wasn't tense with pain, but he kept going, kept pushing, slammed the other mage into the wall with every ounce of strength he possessed. And even Ben was a little surprised when they both went right through it. Was this building even up to ******** code?
Maybe that was why he came to a halt at the tenant's ridiculous assertion of a time out. Like a five year old, making a T out of his hands, the guy was sprawled there in a mess of blood and drywall and shattered tile. It was insane. It was infuriating. It was something Ben wouldn't put past a couple of his brothers, honestly. So he did stop, drawing back through the hole he'd made in the partition to brush some of the dust from his own shoulders and hair while the cocky little s**t he'd been mopping the floor with crawled back to his feet. The metalmancer was as much a mess as the man he'd been assaulting, covered in sweat and blood, ash and splinters and drywall. Shards of tile had embedded themselves in his knuckles when the wholesale destruction sent both of them to the floor, and Benjamin stood picking them from his skin while the other mage ushered his girlfriend out toward the hall. The elf was clearly frightened out of her mind, disturbed to see her guy half-beaten like he was. But the cop soothed her and sent her on her way, put her out in the hall and told her not to worry, which was useless, because even an emotionally stunted attack dog like Ben could see that the girl cared about him. And something about that shamed him. Brought him back from the red edge of his rage like an arrow through a hot air balloon.
Is this more of your handiwork, Ben?
He never should have gone with Leon to see that ******** caim. Avasaad, on his high-horse, shouldn't have any power to govern how far this went. The Tinman didn't want to listen to any voice of reason, let alone one that wasn't a voice at all. After what he'd done to Leon, of all people, what did it matter if he beat some bullshit spark-mage until his eardrums ruptured and his eyes rolled up? He'd already done his worst. The thing he'd told himself he would never, ever do. Don't think about it. Close the door. It never happened.
And his facial expression never changed, never lifted from the glower he'd worn since rising from the floor. But his body shifted, tension easing. The metal hand pulled slivers of wood and ceramic from the living flesh of Ben's body, discarded them onto the floor without a second thought. Place had been a shithole when he arrived, and it was only a slightly bigger shithole now that he'd rearranged it.
So! Back to kicking each others' asses?
In response, the mage quirked a brow. Was the kid that eager to have his skull smashed open? It was a good excuse, practically permission, to keep whaling on the other man, but Ben didn't take it. Couldn't, now that he looked around the apartment and realized the magnitude of the damage he'd caused. It wasn't even an issue of guilt anymore, just practicality.
"Between you frying the wires and me bulling the walls down, this rat trap is going to need condemned if we keep it up, and then you'll be homeless on top of your ******** up face." Deadpan, not a hint of a joke in it. There were times when Ben could be charming as hell, but this wasn't one of them. He was a mass of aching muscles and burns just starting to really scream. Little cuts and snags were nothing, but electrocution took a hell of a lot out of a person, even if they were as stubborn as the metalmancer about showing it.
"If it's all the same, I'm going to go drink myself blind. You do whatever you like."
Clearly, he really had missed the part about getting arrested, because he was already heading toward the front door. It was getting to be a habit of his. Walking away.
OOC: Yes, he do. But that man is poison~
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Posted: Sun Oct 30, 2016 10:32 pm
B y :: t h e :: t i m e :: y o u :: h e a r :: t h e :: s i r e n :: i t ' s :: a l r e a d y :: t o o :: l a t e . :: O n e :: g o e s :: t o :: t h e :: m o r g u e :: a n d :: t h e :: o t h e r :: t o :: j a i l . :: O n e :: g u y ' s :: w a s t e d :: a n d :: t h e :: o t h e r ' s :: a :: w a s t e .
Oddly, Zach wasn't feeling a great deal of pain at the moment, despite being thrown around and rammed through walls like an extra in some shitty action movie. Granted, he was aware that it simply meant his adrenaline was still going. It might coast him through the next couple of hours, maybe even until he went to sleep. But come morning every inch of him was going to give him hell for his brawl. From the backs of his shoulders where he'd crashed into the hard tile, to his elbows where he'd caught himself against the drywall, the back of his head when the wall had given way against him, everything. To speak nothing of the multitude of small lacerations, the open wound on his shoulder from where one of the chunks of flung debris had left its mark, and of course the broken nose. Or his jaw. Or his nose. Point being, he was going to hurt like all kinds of hell later. So, in for a penny, in for a pound. If he was going to have to feel it in the morning, he may as well make sure that the both of them woke up wishing they hadn't. So the boisterous cop was more than prepared for the invading metal mage to re-engage, and get back to brawling. Zachs blood was pumping, and even though he was giving the intruder a lopsided grin, he was pissed. The least the a*****e could do was let him blow off some more steam. But, as the thug looked around and took stock of the apartment, Zach couldn't help but follow his gaze and see that, yeah, he was right. He wasn't exactly a cleanly kind of guy on the best of days, but even he wasn't really keen on the new redecorating. Shattered drywall and dust painted every surface that wasn't already littered with bits of his table and other destroyed personal effects. Wait, s**t, was that his ashtray split in half? Dammit, that had been a christmas gift. The walls had the worst of it, gouges and stains where projectiles had missed their mark, and some fragments of the table chunk that had been blown up were jutting out at odd intervals. The wall connecting to his bedroom had a large crater from where he'd been tossed into it, and of course now one of his bathrooms had an extra entrance that looked like maybe he'd had the Incredible Hulk over for a game of Mario Kart. Come to think of it, why did his shitty one bedroom apartment have one and a half bathrooms? It seemed like poor planning. In any case, the bottom line was that the home invader was right; his place was ******** up. Today had just been one of those days that had been out to ******** him up from the start. So he sighed, letting the agitated grin slip a little bit into the weariness he was actually feeling. And yeah, his face did feel kinds ******** up. He thumbed at his sore nose as he took another glance around the apartment. He was going to need to figure out how to get all of this cleaned up, and fixed (well, it's not like the ******** landlord didn't already know it needed repair now), and as much as he didn't want to he'd still probably end up sleeping there and picking splinters out of his feet in the morning. All of that was going to be such a hassle, on top of the regular s**t he was already dealing with.
"If it's all the same, I'm going to go drink myself blind. You do whatever you like."
Honestly, drinking himself blind sounded like the best idea at the moment. He wanted little more than to put off all of the damage control s**t he was going to have to deal with for his ransacked apartment. But watching the guy stalk away from him made his guts twist, and not just because he'd been pounding him into the tile floor a minute ago. Zach glanced down at his own hand, unclenching his fist and laying his eyes on the scar tissue covering the heel of his palm. Both of his palms looked like maybe they had been plastic stuck in the microwave for too long, all warped and pitted and strange to touch. Thanks to Angel he hadn't suffered any nerve damage, but the ugly scars were still there, and in moments like these he could practically still feel it, hot metal burning through the skin and tissue, bubbling his blood away under the pressure. He glanced up again and frowned.
"Like ******** all you are." Not that he could honestly expect Fullmetal Smartass over there to actually listen, so he didn't wait for a response, instead following him out and yanking his singed jacket and utility belt off of the hook by the door, yanking the jacket over his shoulders as he pulled the door closed behind them. "Not like that you aren't, and not without me. Least you can do after trashing my face and my place is to buy me a round or five." As he spoke he shoved his bare feet into a filthy pair of combat boots that were slumped just outside the door. He'd peeled them off earlier to avoid tracking the debris inside and onto his already shoddy carpet. A lot of good that did him. He tapped his toes against the hallway floor for a moment before striding off down the stairs, waving the stranger after him and talking as he did so. "'Sides, you're not supposed to drive when you're emotionally compromised. There's a place a couple blocks over that's perfectly good, and in walking distance. I catch you tryin' to drive after we're done and I really will put you in the ground." As he trotted down the stairs, he casually picked bits of debris out of his skin. There were a lot of splinters, and he suspected there were tile shards embedded in his skin as well. But those were mostly in his back and shoulders where he'd collided with the floor, and like hell he was gonna bother trying to dislodge those on his own until he was good and drunk. For a moment, he considered texting Angel to come patch him up. It wouldn't be the first time the sheepish caim had been summoned to his rescue. But a little broken nose and bruised jaw hardly seemed worth bothering the kid over. So, for the moment, Zach let him be. Granted, there was the wound on his shoulder. As he stepped out of the complex and onto the sidewalk, shooting a cursory glance behind him to see if the intruder was still following him. Startlingly, he was. He was a strange guy, to be sure. In fact, the more Zach thought about it, the stranger his intruder seemed. He mulled it over as he made his way down the sidewalk, taking deep breaths of the cool night air and methodically picking splinters out of his skin as he went.
Most people might have handled things differently in the apartment. For starters, didn't most rent collectors, you know, announce their business before they broke your face? Intimidation was a pretty typical tactic. But Zach had already deduced that, whatever the guy was really there for, there was no way in hell he was punching that hard over rent. If he was, the guy deserved a god damn raise for being so passionate about his job. But the cop knew what an angry punch felt like, and all of the blows his body bore the marks from were angry ones. It wasn't business, even if, technically, it was. He pitied whoever the guy was imagining he was hitting. But most people wouldn't have stopped when he called for a time out. It was a small, stupid thing, really. But, somehow, it endeared the stranger to him. It was almost like a sort of sportsmanship that was hard to find, a kind of silent camaraderie. So, sure, the guy had broken in and smashed his little place all up to hell, but he'd honored the time out. So he couldn't be all bad, right? And, to be fair, Zach did call him a cripple. He couldn't really blame him for tossing him into a wall after that one. He thumbed at the wound on his shoulder as they neared the bar. The bleeding had largely stopped by then, leaving long stripes of red-brown down his bare chest, powdered over with drywall dust. He did look a bit like Halloween come early. Glancing at the thug again (yup, still there) he wasn't exactly looking hot himself, a red gash leaving a similar stripe down one cheek just below his eye, splinters and drywall sticking out of that brown hair making him look like some kind of rejected scarecrow. He spoke up again as he stepped up onto the concrete step leading up to the door of the little shanty (which by all accounts looked like some shitty hole-in-the-wall joint), putting a hand on the door to push it open.
"So, not that you asked, but the Officer you assaulted is named Zach Murphy. No need to thank me for my service. And this is the Sidecar." At the second introduction he waved the other mage inside, stepping into a den of smoke, heat, and noise. The place wasn't exactly packed wall to wall, but it had a cozy atmosphere and low ceilings that made everyones voices seem louder. There were a few televisions blaring bits of some sporting event in between commercials for prescription pills and shaving products, and worn out booth and tables populated by middle aged men engaged in cards and drinking, some tables more boisterous than others. Without hesitation Zach sauntered over to the bar, arguably the nicest part of the place, all polished wood and backlit, plopping onto a cracked barstool and waving the bartender over. The barkeep, an incredibly androgynous individual with wavy white-blonde hair and bright blue eyes, blinked at Zach, looking somewhat surprised, but not terribly.
"Who the hell didja pick a fight with this time, Taser? A grizzly?" The voice did nothing to answer any gender questions. Zach snorted in response.
"Hardly, just this one. C'mon, the chairs don't bite, Tinman. Addy, metalhead here is buying." he insisted, thumbing at the stranger with him. when Addy laid eyes on Ben, they visibly blanched. Between the same destruction evident on him as was on Zach, his size, and the fierce metal arm, the barkeep seemed unsettled, eyes shifting.
"Zach..." The tone was reprimanding, like he was a kid who'd dragged in a pet they wanted to keep. But the cop just waved a hand.
"It's fine it's fine! Look just gimme the usual all right? Believe it or not it's been a rough night and I don't wanna argue with you." Addy crossed their arms with a frown, glancing between the two men again. When it seemed clear that the two weren't going to start attacking each other they sighed, shaking their head.
"Whatever. You sure you don't need a first aid kit or something? either of you?" Zach waved a hand again.
"I said we're fine! We'll both be better off when we're drunk, so help us with that!" And at that Addy put their hands in the air, exasperated, and turned away, busying themself with putting together drinks and answering another gentleman further down the bar. Zach swiped a liquor menu from the end of the bar and slid it over to his intruder-turned-drinking buddy. "Here ya go, a*****e."
[[ooc; short and clunky like me hahahaha my bad]]
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Posted: Thu Jun 29, 2017 6:05 am
   Least you can do after trashing my face and my place is to buy me a round or five. This, as the metal mage was idly combing chunks of plaster and tile out of his hair. The back of his right hand smeared through blood just under his eye, and the brunette made an annoyed sound under his breath, a run-together of words that sounded like <********>. The last thing he wanted, in the history of things in the known world, was to amble along the sidewalk with some yappy little shitmouth as thought whaling on one another until they were both bloody somehow bonded them as brothers. It happened-- sure, and Ben had experienced it, when he was younger and all about the team sports-- but not in situations like these. The kid-cop with his ******** hairstyle and come-at-me-bro attitude was not about to become any friend of Ben's. The fact was, it had been years since anybody registered on that list who wasn't already related to the metal mage. Not since he was a teenager, and those aforementioned team sports, although if he'd been honest enough with himself-- and he wasn't-- then his real friends, even back then, had been mirror images of one another. And that had been complicated. Worlds of complicated. Worlds of I'm-not-going-to-think-about-that. So he didn't. He just tromped along in silence while the dark-haired smartass took up step just behind him, mouth running a mile a minute. If this was going to be his company, then Ben was going to need to drink himself deaf before he ever got to blind. Just for the sake of sanity.
'Sides, you're not supposed to drive when you're emotionally compromised.
For ******** sake. Was the guy serious?
Ben mopped his forearm across the cut on his face, making a low sound of irritation as the other mage stepped past him, leading the way down the stairwell as though the brunette wouldn't know where to go otherwise. What he should do was to tell this moron that their interaction was over. What he should do was to get back in touch with Lyn and see if he couldn't manage to pull up from the tailspin he'd been in. Or, better yet, just get the full, fiery self-destruction out of the way. Go back to the apartment and upend the bottle of brandy. Break every stick of furniture because-- No. Not going to think about it. That didn't happen, and even if it had happened-- which it didn't-- then it was over, and done, and never going to happen again. Which was fine. Because he wasn't. He'd never been. In fact, he was disgusted by even the thought. Wasn't he? Of course he was. And that was all. He wasn't emotionally compromised. Benjamin St Jude had never been emotionally compromised a day in his life. Sure, sometimes he got angry, and maybe he'd cried when his kids were born, but that was a happy cry, and everybody got angry. Everybody needed to punch something now and then. ********, it was his job to punch things. That was what he knew how to do. That was his role. And when he wasn't distracted, when he wasn't unfocused, he didn't just barrel through things and cause property damage and get himself electrocuted. He wasn't an animal. He was just. There were things that. And he couldn't.
All the thoughts were cut off, even in his own head. Each one ended in a wall, and the word on that wall was NO. The word on that wall was NEVER. It was stupid for this shitty, bloodied-up kid to think that Ben was somehow overwrought, because NO, that wasn't a thing. That had NEVER been a thing. Anytime something remotely like that loomed, the metalmancer put it in a box, and launched that box over the wall, and it didn't come back again. That was the way he dealt with problems.
Well, one of the ways.
The other was probably why he'd wound up traipsing along in the cop's wake, both of them garnering concerned-- and sometimes frightened-- looks from the few citizens still wandering the street. Most people, at this hour, were already where they planned on spending the evening, but those who weren't gave the pair of mages a wide berth. The looked like extras off the set of a movie set in the post-apocalypse, so that was probably to be expected. And the reception wasn't much different in the sardine can the spark mage called a bar. Or maybe the patrons were all just very studiously focused on their own drinks and the games on the various screens-- of course it would be hockey. The mouthy a*****e waving him over to the bar had already volunteered Ben's wallet, and although the brunette's eyebrows probably said a lot about his opinion of that, he didn't open his mouth as he finally slid onto a stool. The bartender looked shitless as it was, and as foul as his mood had gotten, the metalmancer really didn't intend to scare them. His relative politeness had nothing to do with the color of Addy's hair. Definitely not. It was only that Ben knew better than to treat someone like hell when they would shortly be dispensing liquor to him. So he shook his head at the plat-blonde's offer of first aid, and miraculously avoided throwing the liquor menu back in the obnoxious kid's face when it was pushed toward him.
" -ary, -arias, or -araiah?" The rest of Zach Murphy's name, he meant. What he'd been given so far was a diminutive. Something friends and family called a person. As a rule, the brunette mostly shortened the names of people he had a fondness for, and breaking furniture over the head of a stranger didn't count as a fondness in any world he'd ever heard of. The unabridged version was what he was looking for. He sure as ******** wasn't going to sit around calling the guy "Officer Murphy."
When the bartender wandered back their way, he tapped the menu with the first two fingers of his right hand, but despite the prissy gesture, when he spoke to Addy his tone was more civil that it had been the entire night. A kind of firm, professional courtesy that said Benjamin probably didn't spend all of his time in a ragged tanktop, with blood on his face and drywall powder in his hair.
"Glenlivet, if you have it. McClelland if you don't. And a Southern Belle for the kid." As if they wouldn't know who he meant, his head ticked minutely in the direction of the mage beside him.
[ Behold, Benjamin St Jude. World renowned conversationalist. ]
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Posted: Mon Jul 10, 2017 1:30 am
Zach had been in worse fights. He could still walk, still see straight, and hadn't lost any limbs. Hell, he hadn't even lost any digits. And, as far as he could tell, he wasn't likely to gain any scars. So all in all, he counted it as a win. A broken nose was nothing. He wasn't wearing his gloves for once, since Tinman had barged in on him half dressed, so he rubbed at the spots on his palms with his fingertips unconsciously once he was seated at the bar. It was, unwittingly, an anxious habit of the tasers, whenever he was in positions of stress or anxiety. And as he adrenaline was starting to wear off, and the pain began to kick in, he was increasingly uncomfortable. So he was slowly growing less amicable by the time they'd settled in and Tinman asked about the suffix of his name. He quirked his scarred eyebrow, bright blue eyes darting up and down the larger mans frame, as if he were only just now sizing the guy up.
"Just Zach." He clarified with a small frown. Some dopey metal mage calling him 'Zachary' all the damn time would be nothing short of obnoxious. Still, it was better than one of his brothers dumbass nicknames. "Now am I just gonna be stuck calling you 'Tinman' forever or what?" The cop swiped at his nose, sniffling as he rubbed off more of the rusty crust from around his nose and lips. He really did look like a train wreck, even in the dim light of the bar. A nice dark bruise was starting to form over the lower side of his face where he'd been punched into his coffee table. Zach could feel his face starting to swell some. What he needed was alcohol. At Bens requests, Addy put their nose in the air, replying with a small huff.
"What do you take me for? Of course I have Glenlivet. I've got as old as 33..." The barkeep glanced at Zach, however, when the older mage ordered for him. The taser shot the homewrecker a nasty look.
"A cocktail? Seriously? I'm the guy whose apartment you smashed up, not your ******** date." And then, to Addy again, "Just the usual. Please." The blonde rolled their eyes, pushing their hair back over one ear before stepping further back behind the bar again.
"Fine, Taser. But no shenanigans, tonight, got it? You can't keep coming into my bar, scaring my patrons looking like-"
"Addy, c'mon, I practically fund your bar with how much I-"
"When you pay! And if he's not you are!" The barkeep pointed an angry finger as they pulled down a tumbler and a shot glass. Before Zach could argue further, the blonde held up a hand, hurrying down to the other end of the bar to help an older parton who seemed a little out of sorts. Zach took the opportunity to lean a little closer to the metal man, speaking in a stage whisper.
"Yeah pro tip, buddy, Addy is a real snoot about the liquor in this place. It's really just best to assume he's got whatever it is you want. The bar is basically his baby." His eyes trailed after the barkeep, wrinkling his nose after a few moments. "...At least, I'm pretty sure he's a guy. He won't tell me. So."
A general hush had fallen over the bar when the pair entered, but by then, slowly, the noise started to pick back up again. It was a dull hum, a directionless meandering of low sound punctuated by occasional swears or cheers from those engrossed in the hockey game playing on the screens. Maybe it was just the part of town they'd ended up in, but after the initial shock of their appearance, most of the patrons seemed easily content to just ignore the two young men covered in blood and plaster dust. The buzz of casual conversation slowly filled up the small space again.
374F75
[[ooc; i am 100% blaming Bens lack of conversation skills for this teeny tiny post. ]]
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Posted: Tue Jul 11, 2017 9:46 pm
He'd noticed the splotches of scar tissue on the kid's hands, not when they were heading toward the bar, or even once they'd already set themselves up at the counter and the other mage kept messing with them. No, Ben had been tossing furniture back and forth at the ravenette, bulling him through walls, trying to bash his head in, for the better part of.. call it a quarter of an hour. Fights never really lasted anywhere near as long as people thought. He'd been in tournament bouts as a teenager that only went on for half a minute. So it had probably been less than the metalmancer estimated, even, before the kid-cop had called his time out. He'd seen it then, when the loudmouth made the T, and assumed-- given the livid burn across Ben's own skin that most likely would scar, if he didn't give it proper attention-- that the splotches were just the product of, oh, say, zapping the everliving ******** out of things. Nat had never melted his own hands with his powers, but then, the brunette's little brother tended to dampen his abilities, or otherwise direct them through a tonfa enchanted for the purpose. Still, he hadn't thought much of it. His own massive swaths of pitted and gnarled scar tissue were visible in places along the edges of the tanktop he was wearing, since his sweater bit the dust. Without the plastiskin layer to give the appearance of a "normal" body, his prosthesis was a glaring piece of metal, a set of interlocking and overlapping plates that mimicked the shape of humanoid musculature out of-- mostly-- habit. As though keeping it arm-shaped would negate the obvious fact that at some point Benjamin St Jude had lost a fight with something strong enough to pull off his limb as though it'd been the wing of a fly. People in the bar had looked when he walked into the rat-trap, and the kid whose face he'd cracked seemed to still be staring-- things that made the brunette want to haul himself out of his chair and tell everyone assembled to go ******** themselves. But he'd been taught, even before, when the arm had been flesh and blood, that the worst thing in the world he could ever do was let anyone know that they'd gotten to him. If he wasn't in a position to beat them for it, one way or another, then it was better for them to believe that they'd never made a dent to begin with.
"Just Zach. Of course. " The words were impassive, but the meaning was probably clear enough. After all, variations on the name were always popular for spark mages, because parents thought it would be somehow clever to be able to nickname their child "Zap." "And it isn't tin. It's titanium."
And solid, from the sound the thing had made when it dropped to the apartment floor when the taser shocked him the first time. Of course it was. Benjamin had begun working on the thing as soon as he was released from the hospital as a kid, painstakingly shaping and working billets of the metal in between hours of rehabilitative therapy. It took years to get the thing completely right. And years after that, getting his fine control of the thing down. Maybe the conclusion Zach had jumped to-- and it probably didn't seem like too far a leap, given the brunette's behavior earlier-- was that he was dealing with a random thug for hire. The prosthesis contradicted that view just a bit, if only by virtue of the expense of raw titanium to begin with.
Still, what he offered up was, "I'm just Ben."
No family name. It wasn't as though it was a secret. The kid could ask any one of the other tenants who actually paid on time. Hell, if the ravenette was even half-decent at his job, he could just tail the older mage, run the plate on the Pullman, and that would be that. But like the indifferent expression he gave the bartender when they started extolling the virtues of their hole-in-the-wall establishment-- Alright?, the very slightest lift of heavy brows said, Do you want a cookie?-- another thing Ben had learned growing up was not to give anyone anything easily.
Although, Murphy's reaction to his drink order was at least amusing to a degree.
"If you're looking for a date, look elsewhere." The look on his face was, for a moment, pretty eloquent on the subject of just how nauseating he found that idea. Zach was definitely not the type of-- not that any guy was even remotely--"Thought I'd found a little sister to adopt. You sure as hell fight like one."
Though, he wasn't even sure the loudmouth heard, since the kid was already on to arguing with someone else-- this time the little blonde behind the counter. It sounded like a back-and-forth that happened on a regular basis, which wasn't hard for Ben to believe in the slightest. Something about the other mage was a lot like having a cut on the inside of your lip. You can't forget it's there, because every time you open your mouth it's scraping against your teeth. Doesn't mean you like it, just means it's almost impossible to ignore.
When you pay! And if he's not you are!
Well, the kid certainly hadn't paid his rent, and that was now being handled by Lyndon-- probably for at least half the year-- because of Ben's temper. And the metalmancer was going to be well and truly brining himself tonight either way. So he slipped his card from his wallet, fingertips over the name on the plastic surface, and pushed it along the surface of the raised counter until it plipped quietly down onto the lower work-space on Addy's side of the bar. The message was clear enough-- I'm paying. and I'm not particularly worried about expenses. Obviously, with the bit of plastic in the blonde's possession, Ben wasn't going to duck out without settling the receipts.
"I'll take the Nàdurra Oloroso, sixteen." Not a hard ask, really, if both the blonde and the mage with the broken nose were to be believed. Lyndon would have scoffed at the order, of the same mind with their father that older was simply better. But Ben had always had a fairly specific palate. The peaty aftertaste things took on when they were aged a certain length had never appealed to him. It had nothing to do with how he'd first been introduced to drinking in the first place. He wasn't some bungling teenager underestimating mead because it tasted like fruit and honey.
"Why do you care either way? They're just doing their job." One heavy brow climbed upward, a response to Zach's speculations on Addy's gender. As far as Ben was concerned, if his drink order was right, he didn't give a ******** whether it was dispensed by a man, a woman, or a flying robot. In the family compound, it was true that there was a higher than average-- even for their tax bracket-- ratio of trophy wives, but that didn't mean he'd never witnessed women in the outside world who worked perfectly competently. Although, it did seem to jog a different thought process in his brain. After a beat, he nodded in the taser's direction.
"Should call your girlfriend." 'Jazzie', obviously. The girl who'd gone running out into the hall."Let her know I haven't murdered you."
[ As well you should. Also: Ben's new voice claim is the brunette. ]
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Posted: Wed Jul 12, 2017 2:36 am
Zach eyed the metal man, watching his movements. Admittedly, now that they were sitting still, his eyes were drawn repeatedly back to the metal limb. It was a lot like a kid staring at a fascinating piece of machinery or engine. And he was, morbidly, fascinated by the limb. A distant part of him wondered if Lexie could have pulled off something like that, had she been born a mage and not a human. It was a solid hunk of metal, that much he knew, not just from the heavy way it clunked onto the floor of his apartment, but by his grappling with the larger mage as well. It didn't feel any kind of hollow. But the way it moved was so fluid, so controlled... it was fascinating on a number of levels, and impressive on several others. Not that the officer was in any particular mood to go complimenting the guy. Still, his mind was starting to buzz with questions about it. Who made it? How? How did he control it? How long had he had it? What was it made-
"And it isn't tin. It's titanium."
Ah. Well, that was one, at least. The taser scoffed, raising his blood spattered shirt to swipe at some more of the crusted blood around his chin. Since the tanktop had already been spattered with his blood, it did a somewhat ineffectual job at it.
"Ah,but see, 'Titanium t**t' just doesn't quite roll off the tongue the same way as Tinman. It's more of a mouthful. But sure. 'Just Ben.' That works, too."
As if the taser wasn't going to completely ignore his given name and not just call him Tinman for the rest of their association. Which, spoiler alert; he was going to do exactly that. Because that was just how Zach dealt with people. He gave them nicknames, categorized them, listed their attributes in his head. So if the cop called you by your given name, hoo boy, you knew you were in trouble. Given name talk was reserved for serious s**t. Otherwise it was a nickname, or some varying insult, depending on his mood. Hell, the only reason Addy didn't get a nickname was because when he'd first tried to establish one, the keep had been so annoyed that he'd had his slave toss him out of the bar. Literally. And he'd only been allowed back in once he promised not to call them anything but 'Addy.' That was how much Addy hated nicknames. But one exception to the rule was the maximum for the taser. Stupid nicknames for everybody else. Zach didn't give much of a ******** about the guys family name. He knew everything he needed to. He was some rich t**t working as thuggish muscle for the landlord. The apartment was advertised as being a little 'family owned' establishment, but families like the Belz's were massive and wealthy, and were basically little more than corporations with bloodlines. He knew better than to trust s**t like that. So 'Just Ben' was one of those. He'd gotten plenty of that vibe from his obnoxious phone call with 'Lyndon' and his whole dismissive 'too rich to be arrested' attitude. Zach hated dealing with cunts like that, but he had to on a fairly regular basis. Men like that had no regard for anyone but themselves. 'Don't you know who I am? Don't you know how much more important my life is than yours??' So it seemed strange to him that he'd abided by the time out. Oddly out of place, like a kazoo in a symphony.
Of course, Bens little twist of expression at the mention of Zach being his date was another piece of the puzzle. Insecure. So, probably a closet homo. Not that there was anything wrong with that, of course. Officer Agatha was gay as hell, on top of having a girls name. Not to mention Lex and her wife. Still, closet cases were always fun to prod at, if for no other reason than to get them to loosen up some. Sure, there was a chance that Ben was actually just a straight dude with strong feelings on the subject, but science suggested otherwise. It was crazy that there were actually studies on stuff like that. But people like Zach, who were cool with it, and didn't feel the need to go fussing on about things of that ilk, tended to be less likely to have latent homosexual feelings. It was just the facts. But he didn't have too much time to dwell on it before he had to sneer at the little sister comment.
"Hah, yeah only because I was holding back, Tinman. You're lucky I wasn't keen on the use of excessive force on your a**, or you'd have more than one or two little burns to deal with."
For once, he wasn't necessarily bluffing, either. Zach had always had startlingly good control over his powers, ever since he'd knocked them into himself as a child. It came easily, naturally to him. But he learned early how easily that power could get out of hand as well. On more than one occasion he'd smelled seared skin and known that it was because of him. The charred corpses of the dead sometimes haunted his dreams, provided he didn't smother them with enough alcohol at night. There were several. 'Her eyes, they just... they wouldn't stay still, rolled right out...' His own eyes went glassy for just a moment before coming back into focus. Must have just been the concussion. Point being, Zach was constantly making a very concerted effort not to kill whenever he fought with his powers (admittedly, especially, when dealing with ghouls, vampires, and werewolves. Last thing he wanted was to be the next 'trigger-happy racist cop' news headline.). Particularly when fighting indoors, with electric sources to draw extra power sources from. To speak nothing of the fact that he'd been fighting an opponent who had what was essentially a giant lightning rod on one shoulder. He was still a little shocked (ha) that the metalhead had managed to stay on his feet through so many electric volleys, no matter how much he'd been pulling punches.
It was around that time that Addy, with a little nod, tucked away the credit card that Ben slid across the counter.
"Very good, sir." they quipped, not quite managing to keep on a straight face before chortling, turning on one heel to finish the drink they'd been working on before fetching through the long line of bottles along the back shelving behind the bar. They counted through before pulling the right bottle and pouring a measure into the next tumbler. They returned shortly, placing the glasses in front of the two mages with little flourish. In contrast to the whiskey, Zachs drink was a silvery sheen and... seemed to shimmer slightly in the light as it spun in the glass, seemingly of its own accord. "There you go, Matured Oloroso and a Spitfire." The barkeep, if anything, seemed a tad pleased to have a patron with what they deemed as taste.
"Ya mean pixie dust~" The cop teased, taking a big swig of the silvery stuff as Addy scowled at him.
"Spitfire, taser. I told you not to call it that. I won't have you using goddamn racial slurs in here with-"
"It's not a slur, Bianca calls her brother that all the time f-"
"Okay when you become a literal fairy you can say it. But last I checked, you're a mage. It's Spitfire." The taser waved the barkeep off as they turned, shaking their head again, to tend to a younger fellow that came up to the bar, giving the two battered combatants a wide berth as he did.
"Tightass." He muttered, taking another swig of the silvery stuff. He ignored Bens comment on his questioning Addys identity, but at the mention of his girlfriend, he started a bit. He had been ignoring both her and Lex for hours. "Yeah, good idea. She was blowing up my phone earlier. Jussa sec." He tugged ou his cell phone, tapping in the passcode and scanning his eyes over the wall of texts from Lex, as well as a few concerned ones from Bianca. He sighed, quickly tapping out a quick response to one of Bias texts. He'd hardly sent it and started to put his phone away before it started ringing, buzzing madly in the tasers hand. With a sigh he rubbed his temple, but answered after a couple rings
"Bia, baby, hey, what's- ... what? Nooo, no. No, I'm fine it's.... uh-huh. Yeah. Well, look, Lex is a nosey p***k who doesn't know what she's talking about, okay? I'm fine, it wasn't a big deal. ......Well.... yeah.... ...yeah, no, they didn't. Bia, honey, I told you, it's fine. It happens sometimes, I've learned to live with it. .....what? No. ...no, I... well it's.... wait, do I really sound that different? I- ..yeah, I mean, my nose is broken, but- ...oh, no, completely unrelated thing. ....nah, just some petulant a*****e. It's fine now. ....yes, really. ......Yeah I'm at Helter Skelter now. ...No. ...No. Yes, if it does, I will. ..........oh? I thought you were off tomorrow? ....yeah, no, it's fine..... no, Bia, it's okay. ..yes, really. Look, I'm gonna let you go now, okay? .....Bia. Bianca. ....yes. Okay. ....Love you too. G'night."
He clicked off the phone with a sigh, shoving his hone back into his pocket.
"Ugh, sorry 'bout that, Tinman. Bianca can be a little high-maintenance sometimes. She's a good kid, though. Now, didja wanna tell me what you've got your panties all up in a wad over?"
374F75
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Posted: Mon Jul 31, 2017 9:43 am
It always made him uneasy, the staring. It was part of why, on a regular basis, Ben went through so much trouble to make the prosthesis appear like regular flesh. Without the layer of plastiskin, the titanium arm drew attention that Ben didn't want or need, and it wasn't just the false limb. It was the way it socketed into the place where his shoulder should be, and fitting over the space where their has once been a complete clavicle. The scar tissue where the metal met his torso was disturbing. A landscape of pitted, ruined skin. But at least with the prosthetic in place, it looked like the arm had been grafted in place, maybe enchanted to fulfill its purpose. The a*****e sitting beside him had seen the truth, and called him a cripple, and Ben hated him a little for it. That first shock of electricity during their fight sent the heavy lump of titanium dropping from the brunette's side, and what was underneath was a scarred over furrow. Evidence that the real arm hadn't been neatly amputated, but ripped out of place, trailing meat and bone and tendons. So that sideways glance didn't make for a conversation starter. Not with Ben, who'd long grown past trying to pretend that he didn't mind explaining about it over and over and over without ever really getting to explain anything at all.
When his sleeve had just been pinned up, empty, people used to stare and then look away. Pity. Discomfort. Only Leon had treated him like he was the same, even before he started building a replacement for the arm he'd lost. Only Leon, who'd just slipped to his other side, to hold the other sleeve, when he needed someone to hide behind. Only Leon had looked at him when he was torn apart and still treated him like he was strong. But it was better not to think of the fairy, after what happened. Better to put all of that in a box and discard it. Except he hadn't, had he? No. He'd used it as fuel for breaking Just Zach's nose, which had been satisfying in its own way. Because he did feel strong when he was snapping other people, and all the judgmental looks from that ******** caim at the Steps would never be able to change that. The confusion in the eyes of his own children, if they ever found out, wouldn't change it either, although Ben wished it somehow could. He knew what it said about him, that when his blood was up and he was throwing someone through a wall, he felt vital and solid and complete. He was stronger. The cripple was stronger. And that was a sharp-edged kind of peace, the way it soothed and destroyed all in one. Like the bottles he climbed into sometimes, when he was alone and thought too long about too much. When all the doors and all the boxes came open and the things that spilled out on the floor of his mind could maybe kill him if he wasn't careful.
He made a low, noncommittal sound at the lightning bug's commentary on his name. The kid talked as if they were ever going to have another conversation beyond what was happening at this counter. They weren't, but Ben took the opportunity for an easy shot anyway.
"That must make you the Scarecrow, then."
Brainless, obviously. In keeping with the theme. The cop was obnoxious as hell, but he certainly wasn't any kind of cowardly lion. If nothing else, the spark mage lept into a scrap well enough. Part of the job, probably. In Ben's experience, there were two types that defended themselves that readily. Law-- and that covered former military just as much as police officers-- and criminals. Most other people retreated, or bargained, or called for help. A closer look at that breakdown of the strata might have led the metalmancer to look a little closer at himself, wonder which side of the fence he came down on. The world at large would have categorized his actions as assault and extortion, but Ben didn't have much experience with needing to answer to the world. Just like Zach had surmised, the brunette had always been able to stand in the shadow of his powerful father and conveniently sidestep all punishments except those that John St Jude chose to inflict himself. The rules he had to follow-- the rules that decided how his existence was going to run, and on which tracks, probably until he was dead in the ground-- were his father's rules. And from Father's perspective, Ben was handling business. Protecting family assets. Collecting debts owed. Sometimes, the wrong things seem right, when you've been told for so many years that the right things are all wrong.
When the Glenlivet came, Ben wrapped a hand around the glass, sipping a little more than he might regularly. He'd meant it when he said he wanted to get blind, but he didn't pick the Oloroso just for the alcohol. The hint of spice was an odd thing, the slight tang of fruit. Comforting. Pleasant. Warm, and a little nostalgic. Probably not a good sign that whisky had become his happy place.
"Could have killed me.", He corrected, not bothering with snark in response to Zach's bit about the burns being the least of his worries. "I have a brother with your magic affinity. I already know."
But Ben didn't sound concerned about it. He just nursed his own drink, giving the other mage's glass a skeptical look. The Southern Belle didn't seem so far from the mark once the silvery fizz arrived. One of his heavy brows only raised all the higher at the moniker Zach tried to slap on it, but the barkeep beat him to commenting on it, so Ben only sat through their exchange-- which sounded like it had been repeated on several occasions, much like their earlier talk about the tab. When he got to the bottom of his glass, he pushed it forward, signaling for another without so much as waiting for a pause in their argument. Something told him if he waited on that, he'd be sitting around for a while.
Tightass.
"Just doesn't want you being a racist in his bar."
But, as seemed perpetual, Zach was already on the next thing, mouth running a mile a minute to whoever-- presumably the girlfriend-- was on the line when his phone started ringing off the hook. Ben was already tucking into his second tumbler of whisky, Addy having made the rounds toward them again, but settled the glass against the counter long enough to pinch the bridge of his nose with his living hand. The bar scenery was one thing, but the other mage prattling on and on, calling him a petulant a*****e-- well. Ben could be a petulant a*****e.
"Who's Bia? I thought your girlfriend's name was Jazzie."
Or, at least, that was the woman who'd gone running out of the apartment earlier. And of course Ben wasn't as confused as he sounded when he pitched his voice a little louder toward the phone, at the tail-end of Zach's conversation. It was a tale as old as time. And one that it was more than a little hypocritical of the metalmancer to jab at, given the events of the last couple days. There was no way for him to know if the girl on the other end of the line actually heard, and probably the worst part was that Ben didn't care much one way or the other. And the cop, for some reason, had the wrong idea entirely. Thought that sitting beside one another at the same plank of wood meant that they were going to braid each other's hair and talk about their fears and dreams. Or some s**t.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
[ Behold. Ben makes it so easy to make friends with him. ]
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Posted: Fri Aug 25, 2017 3:45 am
Addy poured Bens second round without missing a beat. The barkeep operated like well oiled, one man machine. As Zach tucked his phone away, he chuckled a little at the nickname Ben had given him. Scarecrow. That one was new, but then, most of the fellas in the precinct weren't exactly the creative types. They were actually pretty shitty for any kind of banter, too. So while Zach still found the home invader profoundly obnoxious, he was also a bit of a breath of fresh air. But when the metal man asked about Bianca and Jasmine, it took him a little off guard. He blinked.
"Hm? Oh, nah, Jazz is.... she's just a friend." A friend who he'd very obviously been ********. But since when was that metalheads business anyways? Zach took another swig of the spitfire, slamming down the empty glass with a loud thunk. He didn't even need to signal Addy before the elf was swiping the glass away to refill it. After the initial squabbling, Zach and the barkeep seemed to fall into a familiar, worn out tandem. Despite not specifying anything other than the spitfire, Addy quickly swung over a shot of something dark and amber. Zach downed it with only a slight grimace before tapping the glass away.
"Anyhow, if you 'don't know what I'm talking about' either you're a retard, or you think I'm one. Judging by the scarecrow comment, I'm gonna say it's a safe bet to assume the latter. This might shock you, but I've been punched a lot in my life." He turned bright blue eyes on the home invader, quirking his scarred eyebrow at him. "A lot. And I know when someone's hitting me, and I know when someone's hitting something else, and I just happen to be the one in the way. You broke my nose with ******** fury, Tinman. And I'll be damned if you were that pissed at me for opening up my own damn door."
Effortless, without pause or interruption, Addy moved from one task to the next, passing Zach another amber shot and clearing away the other glass. Zach had long since lost the faint buzz he'd been riding from the rum he'd guzzled while happily twined up in Jazzie's arms. Ah, sweet stupid Jazzie. She'd clearly been scared out of her wits, but she'd get over it. She knew that Zach lived a dangerous life. It was part of what attracted her to him. He downed the second shot. By then, it was starting to creep into his blood, that stinging warmth. His head wasn't spinning yet, but he could feel the gentle creep of the alcohol in his system, starting to dull the sharp edges of his mind, where he could still smell it from that morning - tar, gas, twisted metallic stench... His eyes went glassy again, just for a moment, and then he was back again. No smell of burnt hair. Just alcohol and cheap smokes. He rubbed at the burns on his palms with his fingertips absently. He hadn't grabbed his gloves, so he worried at them constantly without thinking. He sniffed.
"So, obviously, you don't hafta tell me. Even though I'm dying what could be eating at a big b*****d like you." He flashed the bigger mage a snarling grin. He probably looked like a weirdo. More than usual. "But look at it this way - I don't give two shits about you, or if your girlfriend dumped you, or if you're pissed coz daddy loves your brother more than you, or your stupid sports team lost their game, or if you gambled away your car. So, I'm pretty impartial. And for the sake of other peoples noses, you probably oughta find another way to get that s**t outta your system. But if you'd rather just drink and fight, I'm game."
"Uh-uh, you two take it outside if you're gonna do that."
Addy warned from the other end of the bar, pointing an accusing finger. "I've seen how you do, Taser. You fry my wires again-"
"I won't, Ma, I won't! Chill!!" Zach waved a hand at the elf, who snorted, but seemed mostly convinced and returned to his other patrons. Zache waved for another shot but this time, Addy didn't seem to notice... rather pointedly. The cop snorted, pushing the empty glass aside. His mood suddenly soured as the thoughts came back.
"It's fine. We did everything we could. It happens. I learned to deal with it." Just like he'd told Bianca. He wasn't bothered by it. Not by the smear that had been left on the pavement. Not by the bits and pieces. It was strange, the objects almost bothered him more. Blood and grey matter was just meat. But the shattered front of an old Simon and Garfunkel cd was a part of someone who liked mellow music and had yet to figure out how to use mp3s. The strap of what had been a backpack was a piece of an outdoorsy type. The paracord tangled around it suggested a hiker. The fact that there was a sock, a bandanna, separate from the red smear, said it used to be someone who tended to forget random s**t in his car. A crunched up cheetos bag. Zach liked eating cheetos when he got sad, too.
He blinked and he was in the bar again.
"Addy, c'mon, don't leave me hangin." He complained. The elf turned, giving him a skeptical look.
"More? You already blasted through three, Taser. Slow up."
"Pfft, c'mon, ain't it obvious enough that it's been a rough day? We came here with the express intention of drinking ourselves blind, ok? Quit acting like my damn babysitter."
The look the elf gave him wasn't as annoyed as it was a crease of concern. Without any witty quips, the blonde turned, setting to work with a new glass.
".... was it another crash?"
"Addy. Shut the ******** up."
374F75
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Posted: Fri Oct 27, 2017 9:33 pm
'Just friends', the taser said, as though curling up naked was just part of the package. Hell, maybe it was. Maybe the kid had an arrangement going on, and Ben was just too old to grasp the concept. It wouldn't be the first time he'd thunked himself a wall that could get him called narrow-minded, but as much as Just Zach liked calling him retarded, the metalmancer wasn't so slow on the uptake that he overlooked the pointed way the younger mage avoided telling his little girlfriend what he was up to. He'd have bet money-- if he were a betting man, and if he wasn't already going to be paying for the events of the last twenty-four hours-- that Bia was getting run around on. Probably not the first time, either. And it probably said something about the brunette that he felt more sympathy for the girl he'd never met-- and would never meet-- than for the wife of his own children. Certainly more sympathy than he felt for Zach.
Impassive, he sat nursing his drink while the spark mage chased instant alcohol poisoning. Situations like this were why Ben usually just holed up in his apartment when he wanted a buzz. People thought sharing a counter meant a heart to heart, or believed they had a stage to start preaching their bullshit. Broad hands cradled his glass, one warm and one cold, the metal of the prosthetic tinking lightly without the plastiskin to soften the contact.
"I'm not going to explain it to you. Wouldn't get it if I did, so what's the ******** point?"
But his tone was mild enough. Just the facts, ma'am. It didn't matter if the kid thought of himself as an impassive ear. He wasn't. He wouldn't have been even if Ben didn't smash his nose and demolish his shitshow of an apartment. And more than that, it wasn't anything the metal mage had ever unpacked to explain to anyone. He'd come close only the once, to be punished for it. Best case scenario, he said too much and the little s**t held it over his head indefinitely. Mercifully, the taser's hummingbird attention span was already onto something else, and Ben was free to play spectator to another back and forth between him and the barkeep. It was a lot like a game of ping-pong, and Ben's eyes flicked from one man to the other. Serve, return, backhand. He got to the bottom of his glass, and without a word pushed it back across the bar, more patient than the spark mage beside him-- or at least appearing that way. The brunette might not be the world's greatest people person-- See Exhibit One: Zach's nose-- but even he could tell that the other man's breakneck pace was only going to make the elf hesitant to serve him.
So, through their well-worn arguing, Benjamin stayed silent, pulling back his glass when it held another two fingers.
"I'll make you a deal." One that the lightning bug would never take, given his reaction to Addy's concern. If the bartender wasn't going to get an answer, despite what was obviously a pretty well established patron-supplier relationship, then Ben certainly wouldn't. Which suited him just fine. "You talk about your shitty day, and I'll talk about mine, and we'll try not to kill each other."
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