ArchivedLogs:Steadfast Rule

Steadfast Rule
Dramatis Personae Doug, Eric	2013-04-28 There's a line Eric won't cross. Who knew?
Location <NYC> Village Lofts - Rooftop
It tends to be windy, up here, but the presence of plastic table and folding chairs suggests that nevertheless building residents occasionally make their way out to this rooftop. With a good view of Tompkins Square Park less than a block away it's a good spot for city-watching. There's a railing around the edge, though it might be possible (if /unwise/) to climb over it to the narrow concrete ledges beyond and from there to the fire escape. Centrally, someone has broken down crates and constructed a small raised-bed garden up here, barren in winter but filled in three other seasons with a small assortment of herbs and vegetables. On the roof of the Village Lofts, there is a body. It lies mostly still on the rough surface of the roof, legs splayed with one foot turned at an odd angle. Nearby, the sounds of traffic and the ever-dwindling-but-not-withdrawing street noise, which continues in complete ignorance of the fact that there is a body lying on the roof of the Village Lofts. The street does not care that the body is wearing a pair of loose-fitting shorts and little else against the encroaching chill of the night. It does not care about the cooler of beer that sits next to the body. The street also doesn't care that the cooler is mostly filled with empty bottles. The body is not dead, thankfully. It is just Doug, who lies in a fuzzy sort of quiet, his eyes trained on those few stars that make their way through the ambient light of the city. His hands are clasped behind his head, and the oddly-turned foot bobs rhythmically with some unheard music. Or maybe it is just idle motion. The door to the roof of the Village Lofts opens and shuts again, heavily, with the heavy steel clang of metal against metal that non-hinged doors so love to make. The figure that enters onto the roof notices the body, certainly, and his eyes track the movement of his foot for several moments. "Glad to hear I'm not going to hav'ta work. Dead bodies mean all /kinds/ of annoyin' paperwork to file. Waste the rest of my next shift." Eric drawls. His hand dips into his jeans pocket and comes out with a pack of cigarettes. Tapping the package against his head, Eric removes a lighter and a cigarette from it and sticks one in his lips. He steps out further onto the roof, walking to the edge of the roof and looking out over the city. A cupped hand and swift flick later, the end of the cigarette is glowing bright and red and the packet is disappearing down in his pocket once more. "Heya." Doug actually twists his head around when the door opens, tracking Eric with bright (if glassy) eyes. "'Mnot dead," he says in a bit of a slur, and he quirks a loose smile. "I can't feel my feet, but I'mnot. Dead." He waves a hand at the cooler, struggling to roll to his side and fish around in the ice. "You wanna beer?" he offers, sorting through the bottles with an annoyed expression. "Hey, someone's been up here, an' drinkin' my beer," he says, slightly confused. "I had..." he counts on his fingers. "Five, sex, sevvin...I had a lot more than this!" He wobbles on his elbow, watching Eric as he smokes and still fishing around in the cooler. Finally, he produces one. "Here ya go," he says, holding it up triumphantly. "They /missed/ one!" Eric gives the other man a slow, long look, smoke rising upwards from his nostrils as he breathes. "It seems 'they' did." he drawls, eyes looking over the other man. He takes a long breath in, cigarette tip moving from grey to orange and back again as smoke curls past his nostrils and rises into the air. "I'm alright. Keep your beer. You may want it, later. Hair of the dog." he says, with a brief smile. "Why are you lyin' on the roof?" "Suit yoursel'," Doug slurs, and puts the bottle back in the cooler. If he bangs it a couple of times on the side, it's probably just because the cooler is so damned slippery. The question puts him back on his back, eyes raking Eric from this apparently much better position. "I'm lyin' up here 'cause there's no telepaths or empaths close enough to listen in," he says, his voice going a bit hard and rising a bit as he aims it to the sky. "Thass wha' I'm doin' up here," he finishes, giving the older man a long look. "Wha're you doin' up here?" The drop of his eyelids is probably meant to look enticing, but instead looks like a slow, half-forgotten blink. His voice sounds a bit hopeful, and his eyes widen to their normal state again. "Were you lookin' for me?" "Needed a smoke." Eric says, looking down at the man with a bemused expression playing on his lips. He gestures with one hand, waving the cigarette in the air and leaving a trail of grey that matches the city smog. "Can't do it in an apartment, less you wan' the alarms going off." A brief pause, and he looks bemusedly. "It's fine in my place, shithole that it is. Ain't no one goin'ta smell it with all the other shit, and I bet'cha dollars to doughnuts the smoke alarms don't actually work." "Ah." If Doug is disappointed in the answer, it's not immediately evident in his face. "I never hadda smoke, so I don' run inta that." He inhales through his nose, twitching it as the smell of the tobacco reaches him. "Smells good, sometimes, but..." he closes his eyes briefly, and rocks up to his elbows. "I guess you were downstairs," he says. There's not really any reason to elaborate /where/. "Don't start. Things'll kill you." Eric says, in a dark tone completely belied by the sardonic smile on his face. "Smell good, but they taste like shit, 'least 'till you've gotten used to them. And then they /got/ ya." he says, and makes a claw-like grabby gesture with his hands. Chuckling, he leans against the wall and looks out to the skyline once more. "Yeah. But they kicked me out when they headed out for the ni', and I have work in a few hours, so there's not much poin' in going home." "'mnot gonna start," Doug slurs, waving a hand in the air. "Dumb habit, anyway." His inebriated state has apparently diminished his ability for tact. He lays there listening to the explanation, and he exhales. "Thass too bad," he says. "Can thin' of worse things than havin' a hot cop watchin' m'stuff." There's another exhalation, slow and drawn out, and then Doug is struggling to sit up. "Whattay goin' to do?" he asks, a little over-casually. "'Til then?" He laughs; a guffaw that's sort of thick sounding. "Sit up here an' smoke?" This is apparently a great source of amusement to him, as he continues to chuckle. "Smoke for a bit, yeah, then thinkin' of seein' if I could hit the gym before I headed to the station. Nothin' wrong with being a li'le early, neither." Eric does not particularly seem offended by the description of smoking as a dumb thing, despite the cigarette currently hanging between his lips. "Makes me look good for the sarge and all that. Hard-ass bastard." It is said affectionately. Doug's chuckles slow and fade out as he nods in a loose motion. "Work out's good. I was gonna go, bu' this sounded like more fun." He makes a face. "Well, not as much fun as other stuff, but pffft." He makes the dismissive noise wetly, flapping a hand at the air. "I'll take wha' I can get, these days." The beer abandoned earlier is retrieved, the top twisted off and spun off into the darkness somewhere. He grins at Eric as he tips the bottle to his lips. "Thought you liked a hard ass." Eric bursts out into laughter and he shakes his head. "My sarge has a good decade and a half on me, and he's an old-school Irish cop. Not exactly my type," he says, eyes twinkling. "Yeah, I like a hard ass, but one for the poundin', not one who gives me work t'do." he drawls, with a wink. "Oh Jesus, the images in my head." He scrubs at his face with his hands, shaking his head and grinning. "Definitely not my type." Doug's eyes narrow blearily as he tries to pin something down in his head. "Um, aren' you like that much older than me?" he asks, head tilting. "But if he's a bastar', yeah. I can see why you wouldn' wanna." He rubs at his face with the heel of his beer hand, and grimaces. "What /is/ your type?" Eric gives Doug a bright look and shakes his head. "Nah. I'm like... four, five years older than ya, gotta be." he says, considering for a moment. "Around there'bouts, anyway. And it's not tha' I don't like older men and women - believe me, a decade and a half's nothin' compared to some," he says, looking up in reminicence and grinning. "Just not him." He looks down at Doug and gives him a little shrug. "I dunno. I don't've a type. Men, women, old, young... if I like 'em, and they're willin'...." he trails off, significantly. Doug wrinkles his nose. "I thought you were older than that," he says, the slur dropping from his voice in his surprise. "And I'm too much a good guy to go through your wallet to find out." He grins, and this isn't as sloppy as it has been. "Be careful with that shit," he says in a voice that's amiable, but with a bitter sort of tone to it. "Older men. They're twisty and hard to figure out." The confession of a lack of type gets a snort. "Wish I was wired that way," he says. "It'd be nice to just want the fun and nothin' else." He glances at the door leading inside, then back at Eric, thoughtfully. "The gym, huh?" "The fun is fun. S'way they call it that." Eric drawls, brightly, with a playful wink. He takes another long drag of his cigarette and taps the ash out over the edge of the building, before placing it back in between his lips. "People are complicated. I make it simple." he says, shrugging his shoulders. "Better that way, if I'da say so myself." "I bet it's less painful," Doug says, draining his beer in an impressive display of underage drinking. "Your way." Eric smiles. "Life doesn't have t' be complicated. Not all the time, anyway. We just make it complicated." He shrugs, then laughs. "Still plenty painful though. Regrets, curses, fights..." he trails off, grinning. "Nah, still plenty painful. Getting hit hurts." Doug nods. "Yeah, I probably trip myself up more than anyone else really does. Still." He tosses the bottle back in the cooler, and rubs at his face for a long minute, before looking up at the sky. "Bruises and stuff are at least straight-forward pain. Not all confusing and annoying and..." he trails into silence, staring at the sky for a long moment. Maybe he's tracking the plane crossing overhead, the tiny lights blinking up high as the aircraft circles. Then he turns his gaze back on Eric, suddenly hungry-looking. "You really wanna go to the gym, or you wanna come down to my place and kill a couple of hours there?" Eric looks down at Doug consideringly for several moments, then stubs out the cigarette once more and pockets the remainder. "You're pissed." he points out. "Drunk as a skunk. You're in no shape. Call me again when you're sober, if'n you want bruises and simple things. I don't have many rules, but I do keep the ones I've got." Doug rolls his eyes at the declination, and his exhale borders on a snort. "Figures," he mutters softly. Then he's turning a too-wide grin on the older man. "You're probably worn out from celebrating with Shane all weekend, anyway," he says with an understanding bob of his head. "I get it." Then he pushes wobbily to his feet, swaying for a couple of minutes when he finally manages to stand. "You should probably head to the gym," he says in a dull, thick sort of voice. "/I'm/ gonna go downstairs and get on Grindr and see if I can't find /something/ that's not fucking /disappointing/ this weekend." He can't quite manage to keep the bitterness out of his tone as he begins to clumsily clean up his cooler and bottles, muttering to himself. It's largely unintelligible, except for the words 'fucking sharkkid', 'stupid', and 'unbalanced as /shit/.' "I ain't hardly never too worn out, darlin'." Eric drawls, giving the younger man a look. "And I don't think you ough'ta be seein' anyone ri' about now, in your state, or else I'd be first one to be knockin' at your door, pun most definitely intended." he tilts his head for one second as he watches Doug clean, then he shakes his head. "But that's your choice, just as this's mine." He heads for the door, raising his hand in a little wave. "Gimmie a call when you sober up, if you change your mind. Be safe, Doug." he says, as he opens the door to the roof. "So it's just 'cause I'm /drunk/?" Doug says, suddenly, his voice rising to Eric as he straightens with a small weave. "It's not like you'd be taking advantage of some guy who doesn't know you. I've been on this ride before." Then, all the heat falls out of him, and he sits down heavily, his legs barely bending before his weight hits the ground with a loud 'oomph' from the blonde. "Yeah, okay," he says in a tired sort of voice, and he flops down on his back, his head cracking audibly against the concrete. He doesn't seem to feel it, though. Instead, he just lays there, staring at the sky once more. His voice, when he speaks again, is tired and defeated-sounding. "Be careful out there." "Cause you're drunk. You can't drink and ride this ride. Just like a car." Eric jokes, turning to smile once at Doug. "Or, I'm sure some would say, a bus. Call me." With this bit of self-deprecating humor, Eric steps down the stairs and lets the heavy door clang shut behind him. Doug raises his head when the door closes, and lifts a middle finger at the steel plate. "Have fun with your fish-boy." Then there is the sky, and more watching. And he totally does /not/ pass out there, where he'll wake up damp and cold and sore in the first rays of daylight. He's just resting his eyes.