ArchivedLogs:Coming Clean

Coming Clean
Dramatis Personae Toru, Trib
In Absentia	2014-05-04 D:
Location <NYC> 311 {Trib} - Sunrise Apartments - Clinton
For a room in the Sunrise building, this apartment is pretty well-furnished. There isn't much in the way of art - though on one wall, there are the beginnings of what appears to be a collage of articles; most boxing, although there are a few news stories and glossy physique images from muscle magazines. Against one wall is a plush brown couch is wedged between matching end tables, with a matching ottoman seated in front of it, and a blue throw blanket draped over the back. Set diagonally from that, next to a brass floor lamp, is a matching brown recliner - clearly, the three are part of a set. Decidedly /not/ matching that furniture is another couch on an opposing wall with stripes in varying widths in shades of blue, green, teal and brown; this one is a bit cheaper looking, with canvas upholstery and bare wood arms. Under it all, a mottled brown-and-ivory rug covers the hardwood floor. The only other wall with only space has a set of hooks screwed into it, which usually has a blue street bicycle hanging from it, and a skateboard leaning against the wall on the floor beneath it. The whole living room feels a bit cramped, though the relative lack of clutter keeps it from feeling too over-crowded. Through the small, dingy kitchen is the entrance to the bedroom, where a new-looking platform holds an oversized bed; the only piece of furniture in there. The door to the bathroom is closed, but it's likely stocked with bathroom-appropriate accoutrements. As with most Sundays, today's Toru has spent most of the day in a state of laziness that somehow manages to surpass his usual level of sloth. With the slight chill in the air, he's a bit overdressed in his flannel pajama pants and a long-sleeved sleep shirt over that. He /had/ been sitting on the couch, working his way through a Call of Duty campaign, but eventually he's discarded that in favor of sprawling on said couch, lazily pawing through apps on his phone. Apparently that isn't quite enough stimulation for the teen, though, because eventually he lifts his head and half-yells, half-grumbles, "Trib, what're you doing?" Oh, Sloth. So all-consuming that Toru probably hasn't even noticed that the apartment is void of boyfriends. In a stroke of coincidence found only in the hokiest fiction, the front door opens almost the moment that Toru calls out, admitting one Trib, along with a large brown paper bag that smells suspiciously like tacos. And possibly burritos. "Hey, pup," the boxer rumbles as he closes the door behind him. "I'm back." He kicks off his sneakers at the door, and makes his way towards the kitchen. "You get all them Nazi bastards yet, or you need a while before you're ready for food?" "Oh, there you are," Toru half-deadpans, then flops back onto the cushions. Phone gets crammed into a pocket, and pup pushes himself up to drape over the back of the couch, watching Trib's arrival process. "Yeah, I finished that shit a while back. Where you been?" Head tilted to one side, he busies himself with drawing his fingertips along the couch's upholstery, in a fidgety little gesture. "Smells Mexican. You didn't forget the churros, did you?" "You didn't even fuckin' hear me when I said I was goin'?" Trib doesn't seem as shocked as he sounds as he sets the bag on the counter and goes about finding plates and silverware. "That's fuckin' flatterin', I guess." He snorts, and waves silverware at the bag when Toru asks where he's been. Because it's obvious, right? "I got churros," he confirms. "An' some of that fuckin' spicy chocolate dippin' sauce they serve with 'em. An' some of them stuffed jalapenos, 'cause those were good last time." He goes about taking things out of the bag, styrofoam containers and wax-paper-wrapped items that look suspiciously burrito-shaped. "I didn't get no guacamole, though, on account it looked fuckin' brown an' gross." He opens the fridge, then, pulling out two glass bottles of soda, setting one on the counter before knocking the top off the other one. Toru's getting the full service, it seems, because Trib brings a plate and the open bottle out to the teenager, plunking it down on the table in front of the couch. "Street's a fuckin' madhouse," he notes with a crinkle of his eyes. "People are losin' their minds over the warm weather." "I get focused, you know that." Toru grins a little sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head with one hand, then swinging a leg up over the couch so that he can sort of half-tumble to the floor on the other side, landing on his feet with a stagger and lifting his arms like he's made a victory. He strolls around to pick up his soda bottle, then wanders towards the table. "That all sounds good," he nods, slowly, on his way over, dropping into his chair and fussing with his hair again. Then he tilts his head back, yawning, and rubs at his eyes with the heel of his palm. "I think I didn't get enough sleep. Or maybe got too much sleep. I dunno. I don't really like guac that much anyway, so that's aight, yeah?" "Focused," Trib echoes, the corner of his mouth lifting in a half-smile. "Okay. I'd fuckin' say 'zoned out', but your word's just as fuckin' good for it." He snorts a laugh, and grabs the other plate and a couple of paper towels before heading back into the living room. "Maybe later, we can work off all this food," he says, and his tone of voice says that said 'working off' will likely be clothed, and involve running of some sort. Which probably explains the sweatpants/t-shirt combo he's wearing. He drops on the couch opposite Toru, and sets his plate down. "All you do is sleep," he teases. "You wasn't fuckin' kiddin' when you said you was a cat." Once he's gotten his plate put together, Toru gives a vague little shrug at the quibbling over his 'focus', he digs a fork into a jalapeno, shoving it into his mouth maybe a little /too/ eagerly, since it's quickly followed by his eyes widening as he chews on it only enough to allow him to swallow it in a hurry, opening his soda and chugging a few mouthfuls of it to cool down. Once he's eventually recovered, he lets out a few coughs, shaking his head a few times, face a bit red. "...Uh, anyway, so uh-- y'know we should probably stop eating out so much." There's just the smallest of frowns there, before he's elaborating, "Not that I don't appreciate it or nothin' but y'know, the expense and all.. we could be savin' up for a better place. Yeah?" Trib smirks at Toru's reaction to the pepper, snagging one of his own and popping it into his mouth to chew it with less effect. His expression isn't exactly /smug/, but it could go that way easily. "Gotta be careful with those," he cautions. "I understand they can do a fuckin' number on your insides." He grins, and picks up a taco, shrugging as he crunches into it. "It ain't cheap," he agrees around the mouthful of food. "But you feel like cookin' every night for my big ass? 'Cause you sure as fuck don't want /me/ cookin' anything that ain't from a mix." He frowns, his brow furrowing a bit. "You was serious about findin' someplace bigger?" Toru frowns in return, though it's in response to the food issue. "You eatin' tends to get so normal I don't think about it," he admits. "Still I mean... we could have just a fuckton of rice every day, yeah?" He smiles a little hopefully at that, then shakes his head again. "Okay, yeah, I guess you got me there. But yeah.. a little bigger place'd be nice. Maybe not necessarily even bigger, but... this neighborhood ain't great, y'know? I just always figure we oughtta be livin' somewhere nicer'n this pit." He stabs at his burrito with his fork, not quite making any moves to eat it just yet, just sort of digging at it. "I mean, the apartment ain't a pit. But the buildin's a pit and the nabe's a pit and... y'know. Just." A vague gesture with the fork. "Pits everywhere." "I can't eat rice every day," Trib snorts, blowing a bit of lettuce out the side of his mouth. "I'm a boxer -- I got to have fuckin' protein." His eyes crinkle, though, and he wags his taco at the teenager. "An' by that, I mean more'n raw fish. I need somethin' with red meat to have fuckin' died for my dinner." He grins, and polishes off his taco in a couple of bites, dusting his fingers together. "We can look for a place," he says. "I mean, it ain't goin' to be much better'n this one, but maybe the buildin' an' shit would be nice enough we could have company over or somethin'." "Yeah, yeah, I know," Toru replies, good-naturedly. "We can throw some hamburger in with it. It can be the most boring shit ever." He shakes his head slowly, running that hand over his hair, and finally actually starting to work on eating some of that burrito. "I can take some extra shifts or somethin'. And once you got your stuff going steady that'll help, yeah?" He leans back, nomming on his burrito for a while, intermittently sipping on his soda, and eventually lets out a little sigh. "Maybe I just get antsy stayin' in the same place too long." "Whoa, slow down, Bobby Flay," Trib rumbles, holding up a hand. "If you're goin' to get all fuckin /gourmet/ on me, I got to re-think." He picks up his bottle, taking a long pull from it before he lifts a shoulder at Toru's musing. "We got plenty of money left over from the cages," he notes. "So it ain't like we got to /save/ a fuckton of money. It's just gettin' out an' findin' a place." He sniffs, and reaches for a jalapeno. "Josiah just fuckin' moved into a place. I'll ask him if he got a line on anything in our price range." "Well, yeah, but we don't wanna blow everything all at once." Chew, chew, chew. "I mean, we should oughtta hold onto what we can, y'know? Emergency money, rainy day shit, whatever." Toru waves his fork through the air illustratively again, then settles back down in his chair. "Who the hell's Josiah, that another one of your cowboy friends?" "How about we put ten grand in the bank, for emergencies, an' use the cage money an' the money from pa's house for findin' a new apartment?" Trib might have given this some thought, given how quickly he rebutts Toru's suggestion. "I mean, that's still somethin' like forty thousand to work on. Surely to fuck we can find a place an' put down a couple months' rent for /that/." He considers that, falling silent as he chews. Toru's question gets an absent shake of his head. "Nah. He's that reporter guy I met a few weeks back," he explains, and there's a small, familiar tug of his mouth as his eyes warm briefly. "He's a good guy. You'd like him, maybe." "I mighta kinda forgot about the money from the house," Toru admits, sheepishly. "That doesn't sound like too bad a plan, though." For now, the matter of Josiah is all but dropped, the teen continues fussing at his food. Eventually, he finishes off the burrito, following that by finishing up his soda, and pushes himself up out of his seat to flop onto the couch next to Trib. Then flopping sideways, he rests his head on the man's shoulder, closing his eyes and getting comfortable. "I mean, we don't gotta rush at it or anything, it's just a thing I wanna think about, y'know?" Trib nods at Toru's quasi-agreement, suddenly silent as he eats. His expression is thoughtful, although he is clearly still aware of Toru, given the way he makes room for Toru on the couch, looping an arm around the smaller man and pulling him into his side. There's the smallest bit of tension in the boxer's frame, and he exhales suddenly. "/Fuck/," he growls, rubbing at his face with his half-hand and ignoring the smear of taco grease he leaves behind. "I got to talk to you," he grunts, wrinkling his nose. "About Josiah." Toru is silent for a moment, weighing both Trib's tension and the sudden shift in conversation topic. Eventually erring on the side of optimism, he tugs himself away just a bit - enough so that he can turn his head to look Trib in the eye with sincerity. "Fish..." He's hesitant as he begins, glancing away for just a moment ebfore looking back. "...did you kill some guy? 'Cause you know I'll help you hide a body." Trib exhales in a gust of air that's almost relieved-sounding. "Nah," he grunts. "I ain't killed nobody. But that's good to fuckin' know." He pulls Toru closer to him, and inhales slowly. "Okay. I'm gonna fuckin' tell you this, but before I tell you, I got to make sure you understand that it ain't about /you/." He leans forward to bump his forehead against Toru's gently. "You're my pup, an' nothin' is gonna change that." Pulling back, he lifts his eyebrows. "So, you got to promise to hold on to your fuckin' temper." "Trib.." Toru frowns a little, and now he does start to look legitimately uncomfortable. "I dunno if you noticed this but I ain't good at anticipation." He lifts a hand up to Trib's neck, entwining fingers in the boxer's hair and leaning up to give him a little kiss, at the corner of his lip. "So maybe just say what you got on your mind before I start thinkin' the worst, already." Trib wrinkles his nose, leaning into that kiss before pulling back and pursing his lips. Then he lifts his hands, and lets them fall. "Okay," he says, in the tone of someone who's trying something ill-advised. "Josiah and I have been fuckin' around for a couple of weeks." "...Oh." Toru's expression remains oddly unchanged, save for a slight twitch of an eyelid. "I.. well. That's. Alright." He takes a deep breath, gripping Trib just a /smidge/ more tightly with that hand, then pulling it away to rub the back of his own neck. "That's alright. Because. It's alright." There's another deep breath there, the teen leaning back against the couch, and just staring at the wall across from him. "That's alright." Trib might be holding a bomb, if you looked at his face. There's an almost cartoonish expression of fear mixed with amazement under his suddenly hiked eyebrows. Then it drifts to concern, and he leans over the teenager, peering into his face. "You okay?" He reaches out to cup his hand at Toru's jaw. "You ain't gonna explode or nothin', are you?" Toru is silent for a moment, just quietly forcing himself to take slow, deep, cleansing breaths, but eventually he closes his eyes and just repeats, "It's alright." He tilts his head back, gently tugging it away from Trib's hand, and rests it on the top of the couch-back to face the ceiling. When he speaks next, his voice is a bit on the shaky side, and he speaks almost too rapidly to be understandable, "Actually, y'know what, I had a thing I was supposed to do today and I almost forgot about it so I have to go take care of that thing, I forgot about a thing I had to do and it's a thing I forgot about." While he's saying this, he pushes himself up to his feet, walking briskly towards the bedroom. "Stop." Trib's voice is a whipcrack in the air of the apartment. "Don't take another fuckin' step. You come back here an' talk." While he does cringe in mid-step, Toru does not, in fact, stop. "I'm late f--for the th--thing," he answers, stumbling over words that come pouring out like water from a broken pitcher. "I gotta-- I gotta--" And before finishing that sentence, he retreats to the bedroom, closing the door firmly behind himself and latching the lock. "Pup -- " Trib begins, only to be cut off by the closing of the bedroom door. He sits there for a long moment, his teeth GRINDING together with a noise like rocks tumbling. He pushes to his feet when he hears the lock latching, and he's two steps towards the bedroom door, fists clenched, before he stops himself. He stares at the bedroom door for a long moment, brow furrowing in sudden confusion. Another step towards the door, softer this time, is followed by another and another until the boxer stands in front of the door, hand raised as if to knock. Then, slowly, he lowers it, and sinks to the floor. Resting his weight against the door and frame, the boxer sighs morosely and settles in to wait. If nothing else, Toru is only in the bedroom for the amount of time it takes for him to change out of his pajamas and into jeans, a shirt and hoodie, and retrieve his messenger bag. When he opens the door he lets out a stifled /squeak/ when he sees Trib on the floor, trembling a little as he tries to 'subtly' maneuver his way around the larger man. "Trib, I gotta go, we can talk about this when I get back.." Trib doesn't make it difficult for Toru to get around him. He merely watches the younger man with a sad cast to his normally hawk-like stare. He exhales, and pulls his feet up to his body, keeping his spine against the door frame as he pushes himself to a standing position. "Just come home tonight." Once Toru makes it to the door, he stops, his hand on the knob, at Trib's final remark. Tensing up for a moment, he glances sharply back at the man, then, rather unceremoniously, jerks the door open and darts out, all but slamming it behind himself.