ArchivedLogs:Third Date

Third Date
Dramatis Personae Doug, Rictor
In Absentia	2015-07-02 Third date. (Part of Buzzkill TP.)
Location <NYC> Doug's Apartment - Little Italy
Doug's apartment is quiet and still, a single lamp in a corner illuminating the front room with its shabby sofa and mismatched arm chair, and a coffee table covered in tech magazines and various electronic devices. In one corner, a shadowy bulk sits -- hidden or protected -- under a sheet emblazoned with Star Wars characters. The kitchen sits off the front room, equally dimly lit by a small nightlight in an outlet. If one listens /very/ carefully, there's an electronic hum that seems to be in constant presence; as if all those devices are actually turned on. A scrape of a key in the lock heralds the return of the apartment's occupant, accompanied by his date, whom he continues talking to as he swings the door open. "...so Louis suggested we all go to some strip club for Dmitri's birthday like they did mine, but Dmitri's wife was not happy with that plan. So it looks like we're doing a barbecue for the holiday." The blonde grins as he moves to turn on a lamp on a side table, which doesn't really help with the overall light level. "If you want, you can come with me. They're a bunch of great guys. And Louis' wife makes an /amazing/ guacamole." He might be babbling a little bit, moving around to the coffee table to straighten it a bit. "Ah...so. This is my place," he offers at last. "Please, make yourself at home." Being that Rictor is more of the quiet type, Doug's tendency to talk on and on is actually a bit of a relief, something the X-Man has come to find comforting. So, as he's led into Doug's home along with stories of strip clubs and men named Dmitri, he wears a contented look on his face. While Doug fixes things up and brightens the place slightly, Rictor takes a good long look at where the other man lives, noting the Star Wars characters with a smirk. "Sure, I love guacamole," Rictor answers in response to the holiday plans. "And your place. Really, it's a nice one." He takes a few steps into the room, but doesn't go about making himself at home, as was suggested. "Shoes on or off?" Doug smiles widely when Rictor agrees to go with him, and he stacks tablets carefully (but quickly). "I don't know how nice it is," he says, wrinkling his nose as he looks around. "The stuff I had before the explosion was better, but this is pretty good." The question about shoes gets a demonstrative answer as the blonde kicks off his shoes. "You can keep yours on, if you'd rather," he says, tucking the shoes under the edge of the couch. "Whatever makes you comfortable." That established, he moves towards the kitchen. "Do you want something to drink?" he offers. "I've got a bit of everything. Soda, water, energy drinks, beer, whiskey..." he opens the fridge to peer inside. "No wine, though, I'm afraid." Rictor kicks off his loafers and nudges them against the wall near the front door, following Doug over to the kitchen after. He stops at the entrance and leans heavily against the frame, watching the other man scrutinize the contents of his fridge. "Well, I think it's firmly established that energy drinks are out of the question," Rictor tells Doug with playful wink. "How about a some...whiskey then? What kind do have?" "Just plain old Jack Daniels," Doug says, reaching up to open a cabinet above the fridge and extract a bottle. "Oh, wait. Johnnie Walker. Red label." He grins, and waggles the bottle. "A birthday present from Louis, believe it or not." He moves to a cabinet to extract a couple of glasses, setting them on the counter and twisting off the top of the bottle. "And don't knock energy drinks," he chides gently as he begins to pour. "They're responsible for approximately forty percent of my productivity." When there's a fair amount in each glass, he returns the top to the bottle. "Why don't you like them?" he wonders as he puts the bottle away, and his expression turns suddenly sly. "They give you the shakes?" Rictor finds himself watching Doug's every movement, from opening the cabinet to pouring the drinks, with more attention than people normally draw from him, and this realization makes him uneasy in the way people sometimes can be when exposed to new situations. He does his best not to let this show, but the sheepish shrug he offers in response to Doug's question is an indication of such. "Oh, I don't know. It's not the taste or even the health effects. I think it's the branding. I don't like the idea of becoming a turbo-charged monster. A turbo-charged anything for that matter." Doug is doing his fair share of watching, although his is a bit more furtive than Rictor's. A side glance as he moves, taking a couple of ice cubes from the freezer and dropping one in each glass. Then he offers one to the older man, making sure fingers brush. "The marketing /is/ pretty obnoxious," he agrees, taking his glass and moving towards the living room, touching Julio on the arm in a leading sort of gesture. "But, in all fairness, I don't feel like I'm /turbo/ed. It's more like I'm tingly, and very, very alert." He shrugs, sinking into the couch. "Well, not lately, but generally speaking." Rictor receives the glass and takes a whiff of its contents, holding back on actually drinking it for now. "I believe that's how cocaine makes people feel. I mean, that's what I hear," Rictor tells Doug, following him closely into the living room, toward the couch, and down onto it. He settles himself close to the other man, but not so close as to be smothering - he hopes. "How are you holding up without the effects, anyway?" he asks, lifting the whiskey for a casual chink-chink of glasses. "I've never tried anything stronger than pot, so I have no comparison," Doug says, reaching up to push his hair off his forehead. "But I've never gone out at three in the morning trying to score some Bawlz, so there's that." He grins, and lifts his glass to clink it with Rictor's before he shifts his weight a little closer. Not /too/ close, though. Just enough to let the older man know his presence is welcome. "Once I stopped oversleeping, I started balancing out," he says in answer to the question. "Now I'm being all normal, and sleeping eight hours a night." He wrinkles his nose. "How's it trying to teach without the kick?" Rictor takes a quick sip of the whiskey and winces at the taste, but seems to enjoy it. The bit about looking for Bawlz is given a smirk, but Rictor doesn't pursue it joke-wise. Instead, he says, "Well, out where I teach there's still a kick, but I've never needed it, so I go with a little tea in the morning and I'm fine." He reaches out with his free hand to touch the spot just above Doug's knee, drawing a circle there with his pointer finger. "Teaching as a whole, though, is a very new experience for me. It's been an interesting week." "There's still effects in Westchester?" Doug seems genuinely surprised by this information, and his mouth tugs downward as he takes a drink. "Maybe I should go and visit the old hometown." Which is probably a joke, given the chuckle that follows. When Rictor begins to draw on his knee, the blonde pushes his knees further apart, moving the drawing surface closer. "Is it something you think you'll enjoy?" Doug asks, the words catching a bit on his breath. "Teaching? Summer classes aren't generally like the Fall/Spring Gen Pop classes." "You should visit," Rictor tells Doug, interpreting the pushing apart of the knees as an invitation to lay a full palm there, which he does. "Put some effort into seeing me for once," he adds with a playful wink. "But seriously, I've never taught in such a situation. A class here or there to help pay for school, sure, but that's all. Of course, summer isn't the same, but there's still learning curve to overcome." He shrugs, sips a bit more whiskey, and gives Doug's leg a squeeze. "Nothing I can't handle." Doug looks a bit embarrassed at that mild admonition, and ducks his head. "I know," he says. "It's just weird, since my family..." he shakes his head. "It's been a bit awkward, lately. But I /will/ come up. My efforts will be the stuff of legends." He takes another drink; probably to hide the sharp, soft intake of breath as more of Rictor's hand makes contact with his knee, and he pushes it even closer. "I don't think I'd have the patience for it," he admits. "There's too much potential for chaos." He grins, and shifts his weight a little closer. "Not that a little chaos now and then can't be a /good/ thing." Rictor smiles and takes another quick sip of whiskey before transferring the glass to his other hand, which is pulled away from Doug's knee in the process. He casually lifts and drapes the newly freed arm around Doug's shoulders now that the other man is sufficiently near, sealing their bodies close to one another. "Yes, and I would love to engage in a bit of controlled chaos with you," he whispers into Doug's ear. "But I didn't realize there was something too serious going on with your family. Don't worry about going that way if it's too...emotional." Doug fits into the curve of Rictor's body as soon as the arm lands on his shoulders, pulling his legs up to rest his glass on his knee. The heat of Julio's whisper makes the blonde's skin jump, and he flushes pink in response. "I am a fan of controlled chaos," he says slowly, turning his head to look at the older man a bit better. Which means tilting it back just a bit so the angle works. "But don't worry about my family. It's not /too/ serious. Just my dad being...well, the same as he's always been. Only now some of it's actually pointed at me, which is awkward." He grins, and lifts his head enough to ghost his words against Rictor's lips. "I guess I'll just have to make coming into the city worth your while." Doug's implication draws a deep sound of pleasure from Rictor, who responds by scrunching up his nose and bringing his face even closer to the other man's. "You're doing a pretty good job of that as it is," he says, finishing the thought by planting a delicate, brief kiss on Doug's lips. "Tell me about your padre," he asks softly, unsure if the request will spoil the mood, but interested enough to probe the topic. Doug's exhale is a bit disappointed for that short kiss, but he's not one to push. Instead, he snuggles in, humming lightly in his throat. "There's not much to tell," he says, sipping at his whiskey. "I mean, as far as he and I go. Some of his work, I discovered, is mutant-related, and not in the way Dr. Saavedro's is. So, after the Lofts got bombed, the fact that /I/ was a mutant came out and sort of sent him over the edge. Something about losing contracts, and ruining his name..." There's a shrug that doesn't /quite/ manifest, and Doug takes a longer pull of his drink. "He let me stay at home until I was healed up, but I'm pretty much persona non grata, unless it's just my mom at the house." Rictor finds the hint of disappointment overwhelmingly cute and resists cutting Doug off to offer seconds. This is not the appropriate time for such things. He hears the man out, giving some attention to his drink as he does. "People can react to the news in such awful ways," Rictor reflects. "Fathers especially when it involves their sons. There's already such expectations from both sides," he starts, but drifts off and stares into his glass for a moment. "I'm sure," he continues, "that if his name was ruined it's no fault of yours. I can't imagine you ruining anything." Doug snorts softly. "His name wasn't ruined," he says. "My being a mutant didn't so much as register on the social scale. He's just paranoid, because of his contracts. Which, from what I understand, probably wouldn't be affected at all." He rolls his shoulders again. "He just doesn't know how to process it. He'll come around, eventually." Another sip of whiskey, and he's dropping his head back to look at the older man again. "How did your family take the news?" The question, which should have been expected given the course of the conversation, causes Rictor to draw a sharp, shallow breath. "Well," he starts, twisting his glass around so the diminished bits of ice clink and clack together. "There was a lot going on when my family found out and, truthfully, it split us all apart." He downs the rest of his whiskey, makes a face, and says, "I don't talk to my parents much. They're in prison and have more pressing things to deal with than a mutant son." Well, that was an unexpected answer, and Doug blinks a bit, suddenly awkward in its wake. He straightens back up, and his grin falls into a more serious expression. "I'm sorry," he says, furrowing his brow. "That was a bit personal, wasn't it?" Maybe he's unaware of thje irony of that statement, given Rictor's earlier request. Once his glass is as empty as Rictor's, he leans forward to set it on the coffee table. "We should talk about happier things," he declares. "Third dates are meant for happier topics." Rictor follows suit and reaches out to set his glass on the table next to Doug's. "Don't say that," he tells Doug with a smile. "I'm happy to tell you these things, even if they are personal. You won't get any details from me, of course, because I need something to keep you interested, but it's really no problem." He chuckles as he settles back into the couch, pulling Doug against him. "What do you want to talk about then? What will make you happy?" "I like hearing them," Doug says. "Those things. Even if you keep your secrets." He wrinkles his nose and allows himself to be drawn back. "I don't usually get to this point, so I'm kind of in unfamiliar territory." Snuggling back into Rictor's side, he shifts to drape an arm over Rictor's stomach. "I'm not sure what to talk about," he admits after a long think on the matter. "Just sitting here like this is making me pretty happy." "Sitting here like this is making me pretty happy, too," Rictor tells Doug, not mentioning the unfamiliar waters Doug is getting into. They're more familiar to him, but that's also not third date material. Instead he runs his hand up and down the other man's arm and pushes his nose against Doug's ear. He exhales, lifts his head a bit, and open his mouth just enough to let an earlobe slip in for a quick nibble. Doug mmmms, his lips curling into a smile as he pushes his ear up for more nibbling. His draped arm slides up and down Rictor's side, fingers trailing against the material of his shirt and testing the taut muscle beneath. "Maybe we don't need to talk," he murmurs, and shifts his head to press his lips against the older man's. Rictor receives this kiss, holds it, and opens his mouth some to let just the tip of his tongue get in on the action. The feeling that's he's holding back, especially as he eventually pulls away to speak, is present, though. "No, I don't think we have to. Let's practice some of that controlled chaos we talked about." This causes Rictor to smile wildly before moving in for a more passionate kiss.