Safety first [Open/Active]
Who: Ricardo, Mello, and YOU!
Where: In the parlour
When: Day 001
What: In which Ricardo is on edge and Mello is a projectile weapon.
Warnings: Accidental violence? Possible language?
( Read more... )
Where: In the parlour
When: Day 001
What: In which Ricardo is on edge and Mello is a projectile weapon.
Warnings: Accidental violence? Possible language?
( Read more... )
The guy's story sounded quite a bit less painful than his own, but it was similar enough. Still, though, it didn't clarify that he hadn't been involved in this. He couldn't actually tell that the guy wasn't lying.
Especially because Mello was having a hard time believing that he hadn't been drugged and brought here in his sleep, even if that still didn't explain how he'd crashed into the guy at the same speed as the truck he'd been driving.
But before he had arrived here, it had been dark out. It was apparently the middle of the day now. There was no way that time hadn't passed. In any case, he had to make sure. He reached into the pocket of his vest for his phone, and took a couple of seconds to check the time.
His eyes widened as he stared at it. According to the clock on his phone, no time had passed at all.
He didn't understand how the hell any of this was possible. But then again, he hadn't quite understood how notebooks killing people was possible either, and that had turned out to be true.
If time really hadn't passed, though, and he had arrived here instantly, then he did have more reason to believe this guy. Maybe they had both been kidnapped.
He glanced up again. "Apparently, no time has passed in between whatever we last remember and... now."
Well, that certainly would explain the crashing bit, even if it made everything else much more confusing.
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As far as Ricardo was concerned, that was the end of it. He didn't believe that the brat had brought him. As long as the brat didn't try and attack him, he didn't care what the brat thought.
He tested his arm, setting his jaw against the pain as he tried to move it in different directions. The shoulder didn't feel right at all. Pain aside, his arm felt rather loose in he socket, as if-- oh. He had dislocated it, hadn't he. That was exactly what he needed, to disable his gun arm as soon as he was thrown into a suspicious situation. He ran his hand over the area, trying to assess the severity of the problem.
He was distracted by something glowing in the brat's hands. It was full of buttons but much too small for them to be connected to any mechanisms, and there was no obvious source of light. He tried not to look too alarmed-- the brat didn't seem to think anything of it-- but he was admittedly uneasy. He couldn't trust the brat completely and he knew how much of an advantage superior technology was in combat. And it must be technology, because the brat had been so startled by his devic artes.
"What is that?" he asked, eyes fixed on the strange device.
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After he'd checked the time, at least, any suspicion he had about the guy being his kidnapper made considerably less sense.
He was slightly surprised by the fact that the guy seemed more interested in his phone than the fact that he'd just figured out no time had passed. The latter, he was sure, was slightly more important. His phone might not have been in the best condition, and it was just a bit mutilated, but he didn't think it was worth staring that much at. Particularly not now.
In response to the question, however, he took a moment to give the guy a rather blank stare. Was he serious? "...It's a phone," he replied, at a loss for any further explanation. If the guy really didn't know what it was, then...
Where the hell was he from?
Well, this was certainly interesting.
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"A... phone," he echoed, his brows furrowed in concentration as he stared it down. The word was unfamiliar. It was good to see that Mello wasn't using it against him, but even if it wasn't dangerous, Ricardo was rather curious. He looked back to the brat.
"What does it do?"
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It was something in between a statement and a question. Mello didn't necessarily mean to come off as being condescending, but he'd responded with enough disbelief that he realized he likely was. He hadn't known how else to respond, though.
Because that apparently confirmed the guy had been serious about his question. And if he had never heard of a phone before... well, then, he and Mello were probably not from the same world at all.
"It's a kind of communication device," he answered after a moment. "You use it to talk to people who aren't... within any sort of speaking range."
He'd definitely never expected that he'd have to explain to someone what a phone was at any point in his life. Not that he'd ever expected any of this to happen, either.
He found, however, that this made him all the more curious about this strange guy.
"Where are you from?"
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But never mind. He was gracious enough to explain, and he had even lost the condescending stare. Ricardo listened, nodding slowly. A communication device that worked without messengers. That was revolutionary technology right there. Even with he advent of trains and the rise of the steam engine, a letter still took days or weeks to reach its destination. On the battlefield even ten minutes could make or break a strategy; the delayed contact between field officers and their generals caused fatal mistakes. War aside, a phone would change the way politics, commerce, even day-to-day social life worked.
--Oh, he had asked a question. Ricardo snapped out of his reverie.
"Ah." He wasn't entirely sure how to answer that question. He wasn't from anywhere in particular, lately. He had been born near Garam but that hardly counted; he hadn't seen home in years. "I was on Grigori Island just before I arrived, but I've lived all over Naraka. My work involves a good deal of travel."
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If they'd both been brought here, though, then surely they had something significant in common beyond that. The guy was undeniably right about that much. Figuring out what that was could very well prove to be useful.
He had become accustomed to living his life in secrecy, and over the years, had even grown to embrace it. And as of most recently, he'd had no choice.
Considering what his situation had been only a few minutes ago, breaking out of that was uncomfortable.
He was sure this wasn't the work of the police or the SPK, though. It didn't seem possible that he'd been kidnapped by any sort of normal human. And in any case, he realized that trying to keep anonymity probably wouldn't help him in this situation. Not even if his enemies somehow did have something to do with this. Chances were, if he'd been kidnapped, his captors already knew who he was.
For the first time in what had to have been quite a while, Mello could see more possible benefits than drawbacks to being honest about who he was.
He knew, in all likelihood, that meant he was screwed.
He sighed, narrowing his eyes, and extended a hand to the guy. "I'm Mello."
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...Yes. They were trapped in this situation together. It made sense to at least introduce themselves, regardless of what Ricardo thought of him.
"Ricardo Soldato." He gave an exceptionally short and firm handshake-- he spent longer figuring out the awkward grip of his left hand in Mello's right than he spent actually shaking Mello's hand. Then he stood slowly, testing his body for any further injuries, and went to retrieve his rifle.
"We should move on. Can you stand?"
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Anyway, though.
"Yeah." He answered abruptly before carefully getting to his feet, taking a moment to brush the dust from this damn floor off his pants.. "Try and find out where the hell we are."
He took a few steps forward-- walking was still certainly possible, thank God, even if he was sore-- and warily studied the parlour. He supposed it would have been a nice room had it not been filthy. It was certainly fancy enough; either whoever owned it was a slob or it hadn't been occupied for a very long time. And there were three doors, not including the doorway he'd crashed through, so it evidently led to the rest of a house.
He turned back to look at Ricardo. "So what's it you were doing on this ferry?"
While he was stuck here, he figured, he might as well learn more about who he was apparently stuck with.
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At Mello's question he stopped short. He had been trying not to think about that. In a strange and dangerous situation like this, he couldn't let himself be overwhelmed by Hypnos' emotions and memories. He needed to be Ricardo Soldato. He needed to be clear-headed and rational. He needed to not think about Gardel. Who was this brat to ask all these questions, anyway?
"That is not your concern."
His voice was cold and firm. That was all he would say on that matter. He finished pulling the belt out of his coat, but ran into a problem; he would need two hands to tie it to his rifle. Damn it. Well, he was going to have to deal with this sooner or later. As much as he hated to ask this brat for help, it was the sensible thing to do. He sighed and turned back to Mello.
"I need you to fix my shoulder before we go. It should only take a moment."
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"I'd like to find a connection between our circumstances, Soldato." He took a couple of steps closer, looking up to meet Ricardo's gaze with narrowed eyes. "We might have been brought here for similar reasons, you know."
Since the guy appeared to have busied himself with trying to strap his gun to his belt-- carrying around a rifle with one arm injured, Mello imagined, had to have been a pain in the ass-- he took a moment to check his phone. Even though he hadn't quite been expecting to get service here, the fact that he didn't still came as a bit of a disappointment. Mysteriously kidnapped or not, Mello was still incredibly anxious about what was going on back... where he should have been.
He glanced up, and arched an eyebrow in response to the question. "Fix your shoulder?"
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"I am responsible for a bunch of brats. They had been held captive. I released them and we were making our escape." His voice was slow and measured; he was choosing his words carefully, trying to decide how to answer Mello without telling him any of the trifling details. Details like 'I turned them over to their captors in the first place,' or 'their captor was my brother,' or 'we were fleeing from a god and a few dozen demi-gods.'
"We were pursued. Our pursuers were... dealt with accordingly." Snatches of memory flashed through his head unbidden, his own memories and Hypnos' becoming indistinguishable in the blur. A calloused hand, a deep booming laugh, the dark stain of blood in the water. He pushed them aside. "We arrived in port alone. And you? What were you doing?"
If he was making Ricardo talk, he'd better be willing to talk as well. And he was right; they should try and find a connection between their situations.
He finally broke eye contact at Mello's last question, deciding that his feet were much more interesting. Good mercenaries did not injure themselves and need care from brats ten years younger than them.
"You dislocated it," he said, covering his embarrassment with gruffness. "You'll have to pop it back in. It's not hard to do but you need two hands."
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"I'm involved in a murder investigation," he explained. "It was nearing an end, but at the last minute I figured out something that might've been a crucial bit of information. I was trying to prove it, and I'd just taken a suspect into custody when this happened."
He bit his lip, trying not to laugh. The story sounded so much more legal and professional than it actually was when he left out... well, all the rest of the details. Not that he was necessarily hiding the rest of the details. The only reason he had to do so would have been to protect his identity, and... well, that was just senseless now that he'd already told the guy who he was.
Even though he would explain more if asked, he was sure that telling the guy the full story right off the bat probably wasn't a particularly good way to introduce himself.
He somehow doubted that even mattered any longer, though. He'd already dislocated the guy's shoulder. What reason was there to try for a good first impression now?
"Right. Tell me what to do," he sighed, nodding in agreement. That seemed fair enough, even if he exactly didn't know how to go about popping the guy's shoulder back in. While Mello had certainly dealt with injuries before, he'd never had to do that.
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