ArchivedLogs:Moving Moments

Moving Moments
Dramatis Personae Cage, Trib
In Absentia	2013-10-15 Cage and Trib move Toru's stuff.
Location <NYC> Toru's Apartment
Cage shows up about twenty minutes later than the agreed upon 7:00pm meeting time. He parks the rented box truck in a lucky spot, pretty much right in front of Toru's place, and hops out. His Jets cap is pulled down low, and he's just in a black tank top, and dark blue jeans, with his favorite black biker boots. Apparently he's trying to roll just a little incognito, but hopefully they won't be lingering on the street too long. On the sidewalk, Luke looks left and right, searching for the easy-to-spot Trib, but doesn't see him. After a moment, he scowls, gets his smartphone out, and scowls at that, checking to see if he got the address right. Apparently he doesn't think of just texting Trib. Trib is not as early as Cage is. In fact, he's /almost/ late, by the time he arrives. Dressed in jeans and a bright green t-shirt with the Green Lantern logo stretched across his chest, he looks much less incognito than Cage. The boxer seems almost /cheerful/ as he rolls around the corner and towards Toru's building. He pauses at the sight of the box truck, and Cage being all simultaneously annoyed and nonchalant. He stands with his hands curled into fists, planted against his hips. "Jesus," he says, when he finally moves forward again and gets closer to Luke. "You look like we're about to fuckin' toss the place." Cage looks up from his phone and shrugs. "Hey man, yeah. We're moving furniture, right? So yeah, whatever. Sorry I'm late." He offers a wry grin, and hooks a thumb at the truck. "Yeah, it was all they had, what're you gonna do..." This last bit, is a bald-faced lie. This is apparent because Cage has never been particularly good at lying, and it doesn't take a telepath to know that. /Why/ he would lie about needing a bigger truck is a mystery however. "So we good to go, or what? We're surprising Bones with this right - by the /way/," Cage squares off and levels a pointed finger at Trib, "Hey, 'my boyfriend's fucking moving in' is like /big/ fucking news, ok? Like, going out and getting /drunk/ big news. We're doing that later, f-y-i." Cage shakes his head and stomps towards the wrong apartment's stairs. Trib snorts at the explanation, and doesn't look /that/ suspicious. "Dude. It's one fuckin' couch. He don't even have a table or nothin'." He doesn't seem that annoyed as he lifts his shoulders and examines the truck more closely. "We could have carried the damned thing." He shifts his gaze to Cage, and his eyes crinkle. "Well, /you/ could, anyhow." He's about to lead the way up the stoop when that leveled finger brings him up short, and he narrows his eyes. "It ain't /that/ big a deal," he says, although there's a bit of color in his ears, and the smallest quirk of a smile at the corner of his mouth. "It was goin' to happen sooner or later, an' I hate fuckin' around." Such a romantic. He exhales through his nose, this time actually heading up the stairs. "Tryin' to get me drunk is just pissin' your money away," he reminds the big man. "Like, fuckin' /literally/." Cage grunts and shrugs again. "Yeah, you know everyone always thinks that, but just because you can lift thing... man, they just fuckin break. Leverage or some shit, you know?" Luke detours to follow Trib up to the correct apartment, adding, "Well, /that/ sounds like a direct challenge to me. I mean, have you /tried/ tequila since your ability showed up? That'll usually do the trick, man." "Maybe you squeeze too hard," is Trib's sage counsel on the matter of breaking things as he leads the way into the bulding and up the stairwell. "If I was Miss Blaire, I'd be fuckin' nervous as shit." There's no way to tell if it's a tease, since his back is to the older man. The suggestion of tequila gets an amused chuff of a laugh, and the boxer looks over his shoulder at Cage. "It's your money, dude." He leads the way up to Toru's pretty quickly; he's clearly been here many times before. He doesn't pause to knock, instead fishing a key out of his pocket and opening it quickly. Inside, it's as bare as advertised, with only a couch (with a purple panda at one end), a lamp, and a few piles of clothes indicating that anyone lives here. Trib motions Cage in behind him, craning his neck to listen for any sounds from the bathroom that would mark Toru as unexpectedly present. "I think we're good," he murmurs after a moment. "Bones is still workin'." Luke follows up to the apartment and looks around at the sparse furnishings. He moves quietly enough, perhaps surprisingly so, until Trib declares the coast to be clear. "Great, ok. You want to move the rest of this while we're at it? Grab the lamp, throw all that in a trash bag..." He points at the laundry and shrugs. "That was kind of my plan," Trib admits, poking his head into the bathroom -- just to be SURE. "If I waited around for /his/ lazy ass to do it, he'd be payin' another fuckin' month's rent." He moves through the apartment to the kitchen area, fishing some trash bags out from under the sink. "Most of his shit is either in storage or at my place already." He comes back, handing a bag to Cage before he moves to claim one of the laundry piles and begin stuffing the contents into the bag. He does this in silence for a long moment, considering something. Then he turns. "So, what's the deal with you an' Miss Blaire?" he asks, suddenly. "You guys seem real fuckin' cozy. How's she like bein' the squeeze of a fuckin' honest-to-god politician?" "This better be the /clean/ pile..." Luke shakes his head and starts shoving stuff into the bag he was given. He chuckles and adds, "Guess we're robbing the place after all, huh?" Luke in uncharacteristically silent when Trib asks his last question, and just finishes filling the bag, before turning to sit down on the couch in question. "Yeah, well, that's the trick, ain't it?" Luke says, as if that actually explains anything. Fortunately, he sighs and continues. "I'm not really sure, to be honest. I mean, things were going pretty good there, and I thought she was gonna like me running for office. But uh... it didn't work out that way. Still really not sure how that's all gonna work out. You almost ready to go?" Trib chuffs a laugh at the realization that they are, sort of, robbing the place. He lifts a shoulder. "I guess so," he grunts. Luke's silence is noted with a curious tilt of the boxer's head, but he lets the older man gather his thoughts. "Well, she's goin' through some shit, too," he offers helpfully. "I read where they fuckin' took her show off the air, after that fuckin' donnybrook. That's got to be causin' her stress, on top of bein' a smilin' face at your elbow." Which probably isn't all that helpful, but he seems unconcerned as he grabs Toru's skateboard and the lamp, and puts them on the couch along with his bag of clothing. "You just need to remind her she's important, too." He rolls his eyes, looking around the apartment, his mouth twisting wryly. "Fuckin' /trust/ me on this." Luke hauls himself back to his feet and helps stack things on the couch. "Yeah, you're probably right. It's just, with everything happening, we haven't had hardly ten minutes in the same room. I mean, she couldn't even stay for lunch, you know? Not her fault, just... Well yeah." Luke shrugs and nods at the couch, making a wry grin without eye contact. "Sure you don't want a backbrace or something?" Trib wrinkles his nose. "She stayed for most of lunch," he notes, frowning. "An' it wasn't like she /bailed/, dude." He snorts, and his brow furrows as he regards the older man. "I didn't think I'd fuckin' say this to you -- ever -- but I think you're fuckin' overthinkin' this. Bones does the same fuckin' thing." He waves off the offer of a back brace, moving to one end of the couch. "Be careful with the fuckin' panda," is his final bit of advice. "Seriously." "No no, I don't mean she /wanted/ to leave. It's just, she's /that/ busy." Luke shrugs at the overthinking, and then raises an eyebrow at the panda. "So she's got her fucking /network/ to deal with," He practically spits the word network, like it's a synonym for 'prison guards union'. "And my campaign is ramping up - oh shit, that reminds me." Luke pauses to get under his end of the couch, and lifts along with Trib. "I need you to follow up on a case for me. I can't run investigations the way I used to, you know?" "She ain't busy /now/," Trib points out blandly, his eyes crinkling as he squats to work his hands under his end of the couch. He lets it go at that, as Luke's sudden memory catches his interest. He looks a bit uncertain, though, and his mouth pulls into a line. "What's the case?" he asks, grunting a bit as he braces himself. "It ain't one where I got to dress fancy an' talk to suits, is it?" "Well, this is where it gets double tricky." Luke maneuvers to make sure he's the one backing down the stairs. That if they drop everything on him, it's really not a problem. As they go, he explains. "I need you to follow up with Mt. Sinai, acting like you're some Human First jack-hole. See if you can get any leads on what actually happened that night." Not actually /that/ terrible a request. They do this kind of stuff all the time. Cage drops the other shoe. "But uh... I was hoping you'd be ok with talking Bones into helping you with the next part. See, I /really/ wanna know what happened on the school yard, and your boyfriend... well he looks young enough to be there, you know?" Luke shrugs, briefly jostling the couch. "If it's not cool, that's fine. I'll ask around. But it'd be much better to use someone we know. You could shadow him from the car." Trib doesn't have any trouble with his end, apparently, lifting it lightly and maneuvering it out the door. He pauses to lock the door behind him, and then moves forward, listening to the explanation. "Wait. You want /me/ to go an' question people." He narrows his eyes, and the corners of his mouth begin to tug downward. "I ain't exactly the kind of guy people respond well to." He wrinkles his nose, considering that. "Which I guess is your fuckin' point." He snorts, and lifts his shoulder. "I can ask him," he says of Toru. "He's scrappy enough that I ain't worried about -- hey, what the fuck do you mean he looks young enough?" The boxer's frown deepens at that thought. "He don't look /that/ young." Cage gives the boxer a knowing glance when he figures out the logic behind sending him to Mt. Sinai. Once they carry the couch out to the sidewalk, Cage gestures to set it down, so he can unlock the back of the truck. He fiddles with the key ring they gave him, and finally manages to pop open the little padlock he could have pinched off with his fingers and toss to Trib for a snack. "Relax, man. I just mean he looks younger than me or you, and he could be someone's older brother or whatever. Plus, you look fu-." Luke glances over his shoulder, back in public again, apparently paranoid about the press, or the language police popping out of nowhere to grab a sound bite. "Just scary. No offense. But I think he'd do better there. I can even pay him the contractor fee, so yeah." Luke turns back to haul open the roll-up door and puts on a fake-surprise face he /must/ have practiced in the mirror. "Oh shit, what's all this... They must have given me the wrong truck..." Inside the box truck is most of a living room set. Brown couch, brown recliner, and an ottoman, all in a durable, fairly nice fabric. There's also a floor lamp, and a couple end tables. "Well that's weird." Trib shrugs at the assessment of his scariness, gripping the couch tightly and bobbing his head. "He'll probably do it," he says, happily volunteering his boyfriend like he's in /charge/ or something. "Especially if you're payin' him. He's a lazy fuck, but he likes the cheddar." He grunts a laugh at that, a soft noise that fades as the rolling door comes up. He STARES at the contents for a long moment before his gaze narrows and comes to pin Cage. "The wrong truck," he says, in a tone that confirms his disbelief of this statement. "Full of fuckin' new furniture." He grinds his teeth for a moment, and it looks like he might actually /complain/ about this wrinkle. Instead, he exhales heavily, and shakes his head. "You're a goddamned nut, you know that?" It's about as warm a growl as Trib has ever thrown at the older man. "This your way of sayin' you don't approve of my fuckin' decoratin' skills?" "Your decorating skills, or lack thereof, are now officially Bones's problem." Luke grins as they slide Toru's couch in with the rest, and then he climbs up to pull the door back down. "/This/ is my way of saying congratulations."