ArchivedLogs:Dumping Ground

Dumping Ground
Dramatis Personae Eric, Shane	2013-12-11 '
Location <WES> The Grindstone - Salem Center
Bright and cheery, this coffeeshop is Salem Center's social hub. Its black-and-white tiled floors are always kept spotless, and the deep wooden tables are polished smooth. Seating here is abundant, found in the clusters of large and social tables and tucked away at smaller booths, or along the stools at the window counters where the large windows make for ideal people-watching along the main street of Salem Center. With things in the city still hectic for the remaining members of the NYPD, days off are few and far in between. Still, they still have to get assigned some time off at risk of losing even more officers, and one day a week is closer to the new standard these days. Wednesday afternoon is the beginnings of Eric's day off, and as soon as it has started, he is in a car on his way upstate. A few hours later, he is sitting in one of the smaller booths of The Grindstone, sipping a cup of coffee and toying with an opened envelope on the desk, spinning it underneath one finger idly. It is not addressed in any way, though the logo of his employer is splashed across one corner, return stamped to the Deputy Commissioner of Personnel. The bells above the doors jingle with /vigor/, door thrust open kind of abruptly to admit Shane in from the cold. He's bundled, scarf and hat and mittens, dark grey-black peacoat, boots with his tan corduroys. "/Sup/." He heads for Eric before he heads for the front counter, starting to peel off mittens, unwind his scarf. Eric grins, a wide and easy smile as his eyes flick up and down the newcomer. "Hey, stranger," he says, voice almost a purr. "Haven't seen you in too long. How'ya doin'? Want somethin'?" he asks, gesturing to the counter. "My treat." His fingers still on the envelope, passing it across the table to where Shane would end up. "Yeah? You gonna be my sugar daddy? Pay out the big bucks for my coffee?" Shane dumps his outerwear onto the bench opposite Eric. "Figure you've been busy as hell, how's work going?" His brows raise as he takes the envelope, opening it up to check it's contents. "You know it," Eric drawls. "I'll be your sugar pa' for anythin' under $5 any time," he grins and winks at Shane, shaking his head. "In all likelihood, you make not much less'n I do." His lips twist and he folds his arms over his chest, watching the younger man's expression. Like most goverment communications, the letter is written with far more language than is strictly necessary. It is a notice of reassignment, with the starting and ending districts being the same, and the unit commander being the same. The only difference in the assignment is the title - Police Officer, Patrolman, being changed to Sergeant. Another attached paper lists his termination as a member of the Patrolman's Benevolent Association, and instructions to contact the new qualifying union. His grin qualifies as shit-eating. "I highly doubt that," Shane says, dryyyyyly; even moreso after he reads the letter. "-- especially now. Shit, man, congratulations." He even thumps a hand down against Eric's shoulder after he returns the letter and envelope to the other man. "How many zombies did you have to take out to earn yourself that?" Eric's grin is wide and he shakes his head, smile fading a bit around the edges. "I think a better question might be how many officers did the zombies have to kill for me to get tha'." He gives a little shrug, his smile warming again. "But, plenty." He pauses for a second, looking the younger boy up and down with a quick flicking movement of his eyes. "You look good, Shane." Shane's shoulder-thump turns into more of a shoulder-squeeze, at that, his eyes tightening around their corners. "Yeah. Shit. Still. Congratulations." His smile returns, if smaller, a thin upward hook of one side of his mouth. "Man, I /always/ look good." He moves away from the table, heading to the counter to order a mocha (large, soy, triple-shot), pulling his wallet out of his back pocket to pay before he returns to drop down into the seat across from Eric. "So you're still down at the park, though? Just -- bossing more people around in it?" "Yeah." Silence for several moments as Shane vanishes to the corner to the counter, the smile fading off of Eric's face as he looks down to the table. When the teenager slides into the seat across from him, Eric looks back up to him. "More time at the desk, too, but still plenty on patrol. Just a different kind of patrol - being around in case someone's having trouble, more'n lookin' for it myself. Still, it's a steppin' stone to doing other things, too." Eric picks up his mug of coffee and takes a sip, grinning. "You certainly do, 'specially ta' me." "Sounds kinda more boring," Shane admits with a grimace. "Is it more boring?" His hand rests on the table, claws clicking against it absently with a quiet rattling drum. "Stepping stone to things like what? I mean, is there some -- bigger end goal here?" His lips quirk upwards, faintly, at that last comment; he exhales a quick sharp laugh, head shaking. "I dunno. I ain't sure..." Eric glances around the room for a moment, and when he speaks, his voice is lower, hushed, and his tone has a trace of sadness to it. "I ain't sure how much longer it'll be 'for my luck runs out and someone catches me not hurt when I should be. And if I get caught, I ain't sure how lucky I'll be ta get someone who ain't gonna care." A pause, and his fingers drums on the table, once. "And... I can maybe do some more good, borin' or not." "It'll happen eventually," Shane is /so/ cheerfully encouraging. At the counter his name is called, and he hops up to go retrieve his coffee and then sit back down. "Won't be the end of the world when it does, though. Only the end of policing. I mean, I kind of know a whole army of people who've been in that spot. You dust off and move on. And maybe return at night to torch your old headquarters because fuck those guys." He dips his head to slurp at the coffee carefully. "Good like what?" "Eventually. Hopefully, not too soon, though." Eric shrugs his shoulders, frowning down into his coffee. "I ain't know what I'd do if'n I wasn't a cop." A pause, and he looks around the room suspiciously before leaning in, voice quieting. "Good like... keepin' out an eye for us. All 'a us." "Wellp. You have till they discover you to find it out." Shane picks up his cup, sniffing at the steam from his coffee. "... man I forget sometimes how paranoid you have to be when you can hide." His voice is quiet, and quietly amused. "You could do what other shitty ex-cops do and work even shittier security jobs. Glamorous life. Gotta admit though we probably need all the keeping-eyes-out we can /get/." "Most other ex-cops retire, or they get laid off. Not thrown off'a the force and have all their privileges revoked." Eric shakes his head and sighs, looking up and down Shane with a sad smile. "I ain't got it as bad as some. At least I don't gotta worry about sneezin' and shooting out flames or nothin'. I just gotta worry 'bout gettin' shot or somethin', and not dying." His smile is a little bit sad as he studies Shane's face. "We certainly need all'a the help we can get." "On the grand scale of problems, that's probably a better one to have than some." Shane leans back in his bench, sipping slowly at his coffee. "So you're gonna become some badass secret hero working from inside the /shitty/-ass thugs of the NYPD. Who's gonna be looking out for /you/?" "Who is lookin' out for people now?" Eric counters, an easy smile slipping onto his face. "Ain't so much about that. I ain't doin' more than my job. Protect and serve an' all that." He shrugs his shoulders, shaking his head once and looking over Shane. "I've been in worse places. So've ya. At least while I got stripes, ain't an easy bar to fuck with, even if you've got a badge too. Not as hard as some, but." "Protect and serve." Shane echoes this with a snort, grimacing down at his cup. He starts to lift it, but puts it back down untouched, his claws drumming rapidly against its side. "Eric, dude, you'd be hard to fuck with no matter what. Or -- okay maybe really easy to fuck with just hard to make it /stick/. Though there's plenty more ways to make life shitty than just shooting you." He lifts his hand, palm rubbing slowly against his gills. "S'cool, though. The promotion. Make it that much harder." "Plenty a' ways to make my life suck without even tryin' ta kill me. Just because it doesn't stay don't mean it doesn't hurt." Eric says, and his eyes twinkle mischeviously. "Thank god." A pause, and, after a moment's hesitation, Eric reaches his hand across the table and takes one of Shane's, thumb softly stroking across the surface of his skin, alternately rough and smooth. "'M sorry I haven't been around much, Shane. I ain't... very good at this stuff." "Heh. Isn't that the truth. M'sure you'll --" Shane frowns, though, when Eric reaches for his hand, reflexively pulling his hand back from Eric's to wrap around his cup. He lifts it, taking a deep breath though not drinking any. "You've been busy, dude. It happens. Things have been pretty much fucked up as hell." Eric's hand withdraws, an expression flashing over his face in a way almost too fast to read - hurt, confusion, resignation? "Ain't that the truth," Eric says, shrugging his shoulders and an easy smile slipping back onto his face. "Ask me a couple months back, I'da said none of that was ever even possible, and we'd never see a problem that the NYPD can't handle." "Fuck you, Eric," is Shane's response to that brief flash of hurt. "Fine. You want -- what. Come down here, bat your eyes, get all touchy and then we'll -- fine. Look, there's a bathroom right back there," he waves towards the back of the store. "We go back there, ten minutes, tops, I'll get you off and you can go back downtown until the next time you have news to share." Eric's smile fades, and he takes a long - overlong - sip of his coffee, taking a deep breath. "Damn it, Shane, I'm tryin'. I ain't come here for that. If I had, I would'a met you somewhere other than the fuckin' coffee shop." The police officer crosses his arms over his chest, lips twitching once. "I came up here 'cause I missed you, not cause I missed screwin' you," he hisses, voice low. "My life's changin', and what I'm doin' is changin'. And I wanted ya to be... in it still. Would'ya have preferred I not come up?" His eyebrows furrow together, frowning. "I ain't done something like this before. I don't know what I'm supposed'ta do." "I don't know what you missed, Eric, but it sure as hell isn't /me/. It's the same every goddamn time -- and I can't even blame the past month because it's been /way/ longer than that. You come up, you talk to me about your life, we fuck, you disappear again until the next fucking time you need to unload." Shane's voice doesn't raise, but it does take on a sharper edge to it, hard and angry though the expression he wears is mostly /hurt/. "This whole fucking conversation, how many times did you ask me what's going on in /my/ life. You never fucking do. I can't remember the last time you did. And, shit, I mean, I /want/ to know what's going on with you. /Because I give a fuck/. But it's been a /hell/ of a long fucking time since you did me the same. You come here, you unload /your/ problems on me and then you unload /in/ me and then we're done. Did you know I almost goddamn died during all that shit? Did you know the government thugs nearly killed my dad back this summer? Or shot Pa's goddamn /face/ off in the fall? That B got a ridiculous promotion and he's terrified as hell or that my dads got married and actually adopted us or that I've been stressed as /fuck/ because -- no. You don't. You wouldn't even have known Daiki died if I hadn't needed you to bring him back. You don't know any-goddamn-bit of it because you've /never fucking asked me/, not /once/." Shane's grip is tightening around the paper cup; it crumples in his hand, spilling hot coffee over the table and over himself. He gets up with a sharp /hiss/, flicking coffee off his hand onto the table. "Shit. So. Don't pretend you come here because you missed /me/. You don't even goddamn know me anymore." Eric's expression changes from surprise to hurt, then to confusion and sticks there as Shane talks. He straightens his back and he is silent for several seconds, even after Shane is standing and shaking out his hand over the surface. He does pull the knapkin off of his lap and push it across the table for the teenager to take, eyes looking down at the spilled liquid on the table. When he speaks, his voice is low, and there is a quiver in the tone. "I'm sorry, Shane." "I did know a bit'a it. And I /do/ give a fuck, Shane. If it was just about the sex, I ain't be here now. And I ain't tryin' to dump on you either." He hesitates for a second, looking down into his lap before he looks up into Shane's face, smile rising and then fading almost in the same instant. "I did know you almost died. And I can't do nothin' but apologize for things these last few weeks. I ain't get a lot of time to think about anythin'. Comin' with you to see Daiki was 'bout the only time I had off." He quiets for a moment, and looks around the room, fingers flexing into fists and then relaxing on his lap. "I didn't ask 'cause I didn't want to pry. I tell you what's goin' on that I want to share, but not the stuff that I don't. I...." He trails off. "Khhh." Shane flicks coffee from his fingers again, and stalks away to grab a wad of napkins from the counter, returning to mop the table clean and pat the excess coffee from his clothing as well. "You didn't ask because you're too wrapped up in your own damn self to even think of asking. The funny part is all the people who /do/ give a fuck about me? They kept telling me. Over and over they kept fucking /telling/ me how you'd just --" He grimaces, moving aside to toss the used napkins and broken cup into the trash. "I mean, you're still great in bed. Feel free to hit me up any time for /that/. But I was just fucking fooling myself to think that --" He gives another sharp hiss, grabbing his coat and winter gear and hugging them to his chest rather than taking the time to put them on. He doesn't actually even say goodbye. Just shakes his head irritably and heads for the door.