ArchivedLogs:Front Row Seats

Front Row Seats
Dramatis Personae Anole, Lucien, Kyle Whelan, Eric, Murphy
In Absentia	2013-05-19 (Part of Thunderdome.)
Location Thunderdome
It's a warehouse, or something like it; at least it's spacious, and was probably once industrial; at the moment it's largely just empty. There are tracks in the floor from long-since disused equipment and the construction of walls and high exposed-beam ceilings is sturdy. The center of the room has been excavated, since this place was in actual daily use. In the middle a pit has been gashed out of the concrete; it's not /deep/ and it serves more as a foundation than anything else; around its wide circular perimeter a cage has been erected. Nearly reaching up to ceiling-height, it is constructed of thick sturdy metal bars wrapped in a thinner wire mesh. Surrounding the cage there is a lot of empty space. Some nights, though, when fights are in session, the room is filled; with people, with cameras (though no outsiders' cameras are allowed in), with paper betting slips and folding chairs. The spotlights in the ceiling are bright-bright-bright, the better to illuminate the fighters within the centerpiece cage. The clamour in here is loud; it's always loud. It's not all that loud from the street outside, but it grows as people continue deeper into the place -- first through a series of empty offices from the days this was once an actual functioning place of industry; through the ticket-check and ID-check and security search (no cameras, no weapons, though for Eric as a police officer this /last/ but not this first is waived.) And finally into the main attraction, which is at the moment just gearing /up/ for the night. The cage is relatively clean, having not seen the bulk of bloodshed it is likely to through the course of the night. The lights are bright. People swig beers (there are two different makeshift stands set up to buy them!), chat, wait eagerly for the FUN to begin. Which it is likely to soon, judging from the tense anticipation in the room. Kyle isn't tense. He's disappeared around check-in but he returns by the time Eric's made it through to the main room. "Y'want a beer, sutton?" He's casually dressed. Dark jeans. Heavy boots. green flannel shirt over a black t-shirt. /His/ service weapon is holstered at his hip along with a taser. Murphy strides beside Lucien - freshly shaved, freshly showered, dressed in what, for Murphy, qualifies as 'casual'. A black wool coat; a white collared shirt, the top unbuttoned. No tie. Dress slacks. A faint whiff of cologne. Good, sturdy boots. And, of course, his cane - a length of metal with a brace that clasps about his arm. He doesn't lean as heavily as he has previously. At the ticket-check, he lets Lucien take care; at the ID-check, he flashes his driver's license. At the security check, he grunts briefly, eyeing the fellow who pats him down. "Easy on the ass," he tells them, and then he's saddling into the interior. Eyes narrowed. /Devouring/ details. "{Jesus fuck}," is all Murphy says, once they're down on the main floor, looking for a place to settle in. His French is /technically/ correct, but possesses all the linguistic grace of a drunken baboon. It's not pretty, the way he mangles the language. But it's just short of unintelligible. He probably leafed his way through a French-to-English handbook just for this event. "{It's real. Jesus /fuck/.}" Next to Lucien's loveliness, Murphy probably comes off as positively /ugly/. Bodyguard for some socialite pretty-boy, maybe. Certainly not a /date/. Though if Lucien wants to hold hands, Murphy won't begrudge him. No smooches, though. Murphy's momma didn't raise no boy who kisses on a first date. It is easier, probably, for Eric to get down to the floor than for the others, even despite his scrungy black jeans and the t-shirt pulled over his muscled frame. Even despite the gun tucked into his waistband holster - perhaps eased by the silver shield that is clipped not far from his weapon. "Yeah, sure. You buyin'?" Eric drawls in a teasing tone, glancing around the crowd with an eager smile on his face. This is his kind of event - cage match. Never really was fair when he used to play back in Georgia, but them's the breaks. "I'll take whatever you're givin, as long as it's booze." He looks down curiously at the stage, one finger scratching at his cheek consideringly, as he sits down on one of the benches. Lucien fits in with half this crowd; the non-police-affiliated half, the rich kids with enough money to blow on ridiculous highly illicit pasttimes like this. Even in casual attire he's aggressively put-together; the cut of his dark jeans is tailored, as is the slim fit of his deep blue dress-shirt. The way his hair is spiky-tousled probably took half an hour and a good helping of product to look the exact right /amount/ of bedhead. He's curious upon entering, with the same kind of edged energy as the rest of the room. Eyes just a tiny bit wider, breath just a tiny bit quicker. "{You could hold out hope,}" he answers, and in tone at least it is light and vaguely amused, even. Like he's actually pleased to be here, "{that they are going to fight dogs in there. Come. Let's have some shitty beer.}" He'll even buy it! "Sure. Whatever. Next round's on you, though." Kyle has a jacket, a beaten old leather thing, but he leaves it on the bench beside Eric when Eric sits. Like a placeholder. He ambles over towards the refreshment stand, eyes flicking over Lucien and Murphy when he waits behind them to claim his own shitty beers. "First time?" His lips are faintly twitching, at Lucien's apparent excitement, but it doesn't fully resolve his features into a smile. There's a further ripple of excitement in the room when the announcer comes on to make annoucements. Where are exits, cameras will be confiscated, do not get close enough to touch the cage. People only halfway listen to that last one. Murphy grunts in response to Lucien. It takes a while for him to process those words - it's clear that whatever mastery he has gained over the French language, it's a tentative one. Pronunciation eludes him - which leaves him with an ad-hoc understanding that combines context with the need to take approximate assumptions about the spelling of Lucien's words and roughly /jam/ them into his word-search. "{I'm hoping for dogs,}" Murphy admits, continuing his brutal campaign of violence toward the French language. "{Shitty beer}," Murphy agrees. "{This excites you.}" It's not quite an accusation. But Murphy himself is clearly not excited. He's busy studying faces - swinging his eyes slowly around the crowd. Memorizing the layout. Exits. Number of guards. "You got it, boss." Eric drawls, as he leans back against the metal bench one row above him. His eyes follow Kyle as he slips into the crowd for a moment before his attention slides up to the announcer's words and the cage at the front. A faint look of puzzlement creases his forehead as he glances around, the gears in his head meshing together angrily as his mind tries to put its finger on just why there are alarm bells ringing in the back of his mind. He is, however, distracted when his eyes fall onto Lucien. His eyes widen, and his attention flicks between Murphy and Lucien. "Fuckin' hell," he mutters, shaking his head once in disbelief. "There's a year's salary." "{This excites them,}" is Lucien's easy answer, with an absent flutter of fingers towards the crowd at large, their growing buzz as the annoucements are made. "Our first time, yes," he drops back into quietly francophone-accented English to address Murphy, tipping his head in a nod to the officer. "I saw a match streamed but I've been told in person it's -- another experience entirely. I take it this is --" He glances at Kyle, glances around the room. Steps forward to claim two cheap beers and exchange cash for them. He hands one to Murphy. "-- Not yours?" "Hah." Kyle snorts, head shaking. "Nah. Hardly my first. It is a whole different beast, seeing them here. Who brought you in?" He gets two beers, too. He starts back towards Eric's bench, either expecting the others to follow or not caring if they do. The announcer is speaking again. There is a scraping of a heavy door off towards the back. The first contestants of the night are led in at the end of electric prods, jabzzpjab. A lean and wiry man, hair shorn down bald, sweatpants and no shirt, a tired hangdog look to his face that doesn't change as he flexes his clawed hands and -- slowly begins slicing himself /open/. Blood streams out of the cuts on rivulets, but as it streams down over his skin it hardens rapidly into something closer to armor than blood. The second person is much younger. A skinny teenager, green eyes, green skin, green scales. Spiked hard green carapace on top of his head. The door slams shut behind both of them. Murphy takes his beer, still scanning the crowd. He catches something, then. Eric Sutton. To say Murphy's posture stiffens is to presume it was not stiff to begin with. But there is a sudden /tightness/ with which he clenches that cheap beer. Enough to crinkle the cup. When Kyle and Lucien speak, Murphy's hardly listening; he's just /staring/ at Sutton. When Kyle moves away, Murphy reaches - touching Lucien's elbow. "{Know him,}" Murphy says, casually gesturing with his cup toward Eric. "{Cop. Has gun. Bad sign. Worst sign.}" There's a pause, then, as the match begins. At the sight of the teenager - Murphy sighs. "{Not dogs. Know green one. Missing kid. 15. Parents miss him.}" He takes a slow, casual sip of his shitty beer. "{Cop is friend of Jax. Fucked one of his kids. They're missing. After show. Going to kill.}" Dead calm. Eric does not immediately notice the goings on in the cage, so distracted is he by staring at Lucien. He shakes his head to stir his thoughts, and as he catches a glimpse of Kyle approaching out of the corner of his eyes. He glances towards the other man and spots Murphy. A smile cracks across his face and he raises a hand in a saluting wave. "Heya." he drawls, smiling at Kyle. He turns his head back towards the cage, and he blinks several times as he studies the movement of the two figures in the cage. His eyebrows furrow, and his head tilts slightly to one side. The boy in the ring needs the prodding; he's clearly pretty reluctant to be there. And even once the door is closed, he's just -- shrinking back against the bars, his eyes huge and wide. His opponent's first lunge just sends him /skittering/ quickly up the bars towards the ceiling, scaling the wall and then the ceiling with ease. And a good deal of panic. "{-- Jax's kids. But. They are --}" Lucien glances between Eric and the cage, his eyebrows raising. "{So he'll stick it in one, but then turn around and watch them --}" He sips at his beer, slowly, perhaps to hide the faint tightening of his jaw. "{Fifteen.}" But in the next moment his smile is back, quick and easy. "{Showtime.}" He claps Murphy lightly on the shoulder, heading over to the benches to take a seat behind Eric and Kyle. The name he gives Kyle is a justice of New York's Supreme Court. Likely such a /heartening/ person to have hooked him up with tickets to this show. "Your first time, too?" he asks Eric, absent and casual as he notes the man's furrowing of brow. "Mmm. Him. Yeah. Think he might be around --" Kyle glances around the crowd in a quick sweep, but his attention soon returns to the cage. "Just a warm-up," he assures the others, "Skinny one hasn't done too well for himself yet. Spends more time running than fighting. Quick as fuck, though. But the fights after'll probably be the more interesting ones." His opponent is not so quick. Taking his time about growing his shield of blood armor. When he's done, though, he /scowls/ up at the ceiling. Like seriously. WTF. But he just waits. Kind of patiently. For the zzzzzp that is actually very /quick/ to come; the guards are well acquainted by now with Anole's style of -- fight-avoidance. When Eric gives Murphy a little salute, Murphy lifts his cup of beer back. That worn scowl of his never flicking. Hello, Eric. He takes another sip as Lucien talks, not responding; just watching the match. Hand tightening on the brace of his cane as the kid skitters nervously. When Lucien delivers that shoulder-clap... "{Be careful,}" is all he offers, soft and concerned. But soon, Murphy's moving a bit closer - following Lucien, /hovering/ around the discussion. Watching the fight - not Eric, not Kyle. But also /listening/. You can bet your ass every single word of this conversation is getting absorbed. But he's not going to get involved; he knows better. Leave the subterfuge for Lucien; Murphy will handle the wetwork. Eric does not respond to the question posed to him, as his attention fixes on the match unfolding in front of him. His eyes blink several times, a brief look of - nausea? - twists in his expression before a casual look replaces it. "Where's that beer, huh, Kyle?" he asks, nudging the other man with one shoulder. "Hm? Yeah - my first time here." he says, turning to glance with a smile at Lucien - and a flick of his eyes up and down the other man. His head turns back quickly to the fight, though, even looking at /Lucien/ unable to hold his attention now. Anole is by now probably expecting that zzzp; when it comes he is not on the ceiling but clinging high to the mesh grate. His muscles clench, hand still gripping the bars tightly until it passes. And then he launches, finally, down off the wall to land back on the ground and charge, head tucked low to ram his hard green spikes towards the other man's side. Lucien's eyebrows raise as he watches this, and he sips at his beer. His eyes shift to Kyle. "Doesn't seem like much of a fighter. You would think they'd grab ones with more -- /oomph/ to them." Though he quiets with a quick curl of smile, a low whistle, as the boy drops and charges. "Have any money on this one?" He's asking this of Eric, green eyes rather intently focused on the officer. The man in the ring takes the charge with a sudden whoosh of breath and a /crackling/ of the blood-armor he wears. He is bringing up a red-plated fist to thud into the teenager's sternum. "Oh, there's lot with /oomph/ to them," Kyle assures them; his gruff tone has a note of humour to it. "Brought these skinny-ass fish freaks in here the other day, didn't think they'd amount to anything either. You should /see/ them tear the others the fuck /apart/, though. Vicious as hell." He hands the second beer over to Eric. "But then, most of them /are/, really." At Kyle's words, Murphy's plastic cup of beer crumples under his fingers. Murphy drops it, masking the act as a brief, clumsy fumble. "...ah, fuck," he grunts, crouching to pick up the cup. His jaw is tight, his scowl hard. His grip on his cane tightens until his knuckles are bone-white. "No. Didn't know it'd be a bettin' place." Eric says, and his voice is quieter now as he watches the fight proceeding in front of him. He jumps, slightly, in surprise as he turns towards Kyle. "Fish freaks?" he says, carefully, blinking several times in puzzlement. His voice is level, and the expression on his face is still confused. He looks back to the fight, then back to Kyle. "Blue? Look kind of like sharks?" he asks, voice perfectly flat. He takes a long gulping sip of the beer, then holds the cup carefully in his hand. His control, it seems, is a bit better than Murphy's. "Blue. Sharks." Lucien exhales a kind of amused breath, glancing over towards the cage. "Goodness, you should match them up together. It would be the most /colourful/ of fights. Do they come in purple, perhaps? Red?" His hand lifts, with its cup, knuckles scuffing against his cheek. His eyes flick sideways to Murphy, and he shifts in his seat, pulling his wallet out again. He hands Murphy a ten. "Get yourself another drink. You are buying the next round, though." "You know the ones, Sutton?" It's Kyle's turn to raise his eyebrows, this time. But then he frowns at Murphy, shifting out of the way of splashing beer. "Fuck, man, watch it." The frown remains, kind of deeper. "You got a problem?" He swigs at his beer. There's a cheer from the audience as the blood-armored man slams the teenager back against the cage. "-- s'is going fucking quick. Uh. Yeah, there's a red one down there. Looks like the fucking devil." He looks like he might be seriously contemplating the merits of matching fights by colour. Something hard and vicious crosses Murphy's face when Eric Sutton mentions the word 'blue'. The plastic cup gets thrown - casually - into a nearby trashcan. And then, as he brushes off his coat with angry swipes of his hand: "Fuckin'... {Will kill kids. If they know. Father.}" He snaps his eyes back up to Lucien, that offer of the ten dollar bill. Reaching for it with a wrinkle of his nose, a snarl. Murphy may not be a good actor, but right now? He doesn't need to act. He's angry as fuck. It's just a matter of making it look like he's angry about something else. "Oh, fuck you, you little... {If he talks. Stone them.}" "Yeah, I might know 'em." Eric says, distractedly. He takes another long sip of his drink and glances up at Murphy, then back to the cage. "I mean, fuck, how many blue shark-people can there be in the city? I mean, don't get me wrong, boss," he winks. "I'm from down in peach country. What I know about what you city folk can provide?" he jokes. His eyes focus back onto the cage match happening in front of him, eyes focused enough to be very interested - or completely uncaring. "{I imagine they might kill them anyway. Sooner or later.} -- More than one, apparently," Lucien answers dryly, "which is more than I would have imagined there were. Still. The things you see --" His head shakes, slightly, eyes focusing back on the fight. Anole /has/ been taking a beating. But eventually managing to wriggle away which -- proves more difficult for his opponent, now; what the small green teenager lacks in strength he makes up for in speed. Dart. Dartdart/dart/. Punchjabheadbutt. It's not very impressive but it is /wearing/, cracking away at that armor. His teeth flash thinly to Eric, a slim slice of smile. "This city provides all /manner/ of entertainment. Something, it seems, for all tastes." Kyle's eyes are still narrowed. Watching Murphy with a growing suspicion. "Your friend got a problem?" he asks Lucien, this time. /Snorts/ at Eric. "You don't," he tells Lucien, "even want to get started on what /this/ asshole's tastes are like." He nudges Eric in the side with his elbow. "Bet you don't have anything like this in /peach/ country, though. -- Woah, shit. Little fucker's turning things around." The blood armour is cracking with those headbutts, starting to slough off in chunks of red-brown plate. "{Probably, but--}" Murphy tells Lucien, teeth-gritted, as he shoves the ten dollar bill into his fist. In Murphy's mind, gears churn, chewing through possibilities in rapid succession. The difficulty in getting two stoned officers outside. How to explain the disappearance. The risks it would involve. The process takes about two seconds; he's just /standing/ there, glowering at Lucien. But then, he turns away: "{--you're right.}" Harsh. Like a curse. Not responding to Kyle's question. Just stomping his way toward the vendor to shove the money in his face. "Hey, hey," Eric says, laughing and shaking his head. "You're the one who accepted to go out on a date with me. And in the middle of the department gym, too!" he turns and winks at Lucien, giving him a nod. "It certainly does." His smile fades slightly as he turns a back to face the ring, watching for several moments in silence, as the warmth in his smile fades to a flatter, more dispassionate look. "Let's talk later 'bout them, Kyle." he says, suddenly, and quietly. "Oh," there is a note of quiet amusement buried in Lucien's tone, and he doesn't watch Murphy move away, "he has /many/ problems, I am not sure where I would start. -- Kind of makes me wish I /had/ put money on this." His eyes are slightly widening at the change of pace in the ring, at each successive drop of chunky plate armor. His head rolls, kind of lazy-slow, a stretch of the neck one direction and then another. He watches the shift in Eric's expression with a thoughtful hum into his cup. "This," he still sounds a little amused, "is a /date/? You /do/ have interesting tastes." In the ring, the man -- is getting kind of worn down; each successive crack of armour plating seems to /hurt/, and though he lands more hits on Anole the teenager's speed is somewhat too much for him to properly keep up with. "This isn't no fucking /date/," Kyle's answer to this is swift and a little gruff. His next poke of elbow to Eric's rubs is harder. JAB. "Even if Sutton /wishes/ it was. -- Talk about what, your /freaky-ass/ fetishes?" He looks back at Lucien, looks over at Murphy, and his smile hooks up crookedy-lopsided. "Start with learning how to hold his booze." That might be a literal kind of hold. Murphy, meanwhile, waits for his cheap beer - it takes a moment for him to reach the front of the line. After he slaps the ten dollar bill down and receives his plastic cup, he pauses for just a moment - watching the fight with narrowed eyes. Before taking a long sip. It's only then he starts to make his way back to the group, his scowl having settled back toward its neutral state. "Course it is. You liked the first date so much, you asked me t'a second. Nobody ever told you, the second date is the freaky fetish date?" Eric says, but his eyes stay focused on the cage match happening in front of them. "I think I arrested that kid, once." he says, musingly. "Pickpocketing? Something like that." He shakes his head, once. "Small city for a big city." He finishes his beer. "Ah," Lucien says this mildly, "so he is a criminal." This seems to amuse him. At least there's an upward curl of his lips, a quiet note of laughter in his voice. "I suppose many of them are. -- Don't," he cautions Murphy when the man approaches again, "drop that one." It's the same sort of lightly teasing-chiding tone that he continues in, in French, "{Do you have control of yourself? Because if you can't I will get control for you.} -- This is certainly a more interesting Sunday night than most of mine. Are these held often?" "You fucking serious, /I/ arrested that kid for pickpocketing." Kyle's head is shaking, but there's rough laughter in his voice. "Go figure. Yeah. Most of them are. Don't know any beat cops these days /without/ their share of stories." He leans forward, watching more intently as the man is worn down, as the fight perhaps starts to draw to, if not a close, at least more interesting climax. "Eh. Often enough. We've got enough of these freaks down there to keep things interesting. I'd say about four nights a week." It takes a moment for Murphy to translate; once he does, for a moment, he looks sincerely tempted by the offer. But then -- he just shakes his head. "{Panicked. Met them. Have control. Won't happen again.}" Then, as if to demonstrate this, he actually speaks - perhaps for the first time - to Kyle and Eric. His voice a rough, rumbling growl: "Pack of 'em ripped one of my best friends apart back in Afghanistan. Th'fuck you keep control of something like that." Eric leans forward a little bit, watching the fight as it draws towards a close. "Eh." He shrugs his shoulders and glances down into his empty beer cup. "I gotta piss like a racehorse. You want a second beer?" he asks, as he stands up and begins to head towards the restrooms. "Down there. You keep them all /here/?" Lucien's eyebrows tick upwards, and he watches the fight with a renewed interest: "Risky, isn't it? They seem -- uncontrollable. I'm surprised there have been no incidents." He exhales a quiet laugh. "Well. Between them and the /audience/." "Nah, I'm good," Kyle waves away Eric's offer, his own beer only half-finished. "Always some risk, sure, but we keep 'em under control, don't you worry. Even if they got out of the cage those collars they have on would fry them dead before they made it near you. We don't want any, uh, incidents any more than you want that thing ramming those spikes into your /face/." He says this as a butt of head-spikes into now soft unarmored flesh drives the man back. "Rounding them up can be tricky but keeping 'em's been smooth enough so far." Lucien's question earns a quick sharp grin. "Not too many other places in the city you /could/ pull off something like this. But fuck, man, who the hell pays attention to what goes on in Chinatown." "Yeah," Murphy responds, taking another sip of his beer. "Fuckin' Chinatown." As if this just somehow. Figured. He watches as Eric leaves; a brief narrowing of his eyes. "{Is mutant. Knows I know. Doesn't know I am.}" to Lucien, along with an elbow nudge, as if making - some offhand comment about Eric. /Maybe/ about his ass. But then, to Kyle: "Dunno about that. Back in the Corps, the brass told us to never take any of 'em prisoner. Kill 'em on the spot. Shit's hard to fuckin' contain. Can't they just yank that shit off?" Eric, sure enough, vanishes into the bathroom for a minute or two before he reemerges to head to the beverage stand. His smile is a little bit brighter when he returns, and that hardness in his expression has faded back to a more normal tone. He's even flirting with the bartending staff, shamelessly, before he heads back over to Kyle and co. "{Really. What the fuck is he doing here.}" Because Murphy and Lucien aren't, you know, also mutants attending this fight. Lucien's watching Eric's departing back (ass?) too, but then turns his attention back. "I am sure," he says lightly, "they /could/ do a lot of things. It would only take a few getting free to start any /manner/ of trouble. Although," he murmurs thoughtfully, and here his smile returns, quick-flick towards Eric's badge, "-- I suppose if New York's Finest are helping /hold/ them, there would be any /manner/ of trouble for them in return." "Helping hold them?" This earns Lucien another laugh, brighter this time as Kyle swigs down the last of his beer. The fight in the ring is finishing; Anole has taken any number of solid hits but the other man is stippled with /punctures/ from those sharp hard head-spikes, and /this/ blood, while quick to clot, is also crumpling him into an unsteady ball. "Helping hold them, shit, man, we're running the whole damn show. Easiest way to keep this thing running smooth and quiet." "Mmn. Glad to hear it," Murphy responds. And then, much more softly - just a breathy little utterance - to Lucien. "{We're moving to Canada.}"