Under the Las Vegas Moon [Jean-Paul]

[venus_afflicted]

He had pinpointed from the house in Colorado to the same rooftop in Vegas. It had been a while since he'd felt the need to retreat to that particular place and yet, tonight, he couldn't resist the siren call of it

Comments

[lust_for_life]

Jean-Paul reads the text messages, then throws his phone out the window.

[venus_afflicted]

It was a couple of hours later when he sent the next messages:

Talk to me.

Come on, you can't ignore me all night.

I'm going to call Peter's, see if you're there.

He had no way of knowing they would never be received.

[lust_for_life]

Jean-Paul is incommunicado for hours. He gets out of the Nexus and spends a lot of time bumming around the streets, smoking cigarettes and kicking cans. At some point he found himself in a bar in District X, standing outside the mosh pit as some punk band tried desperately to be the next Dazzler.

He leaves at some ungodly hour, sits on the curb all Ian Mackeye style. None of this has helped, he's more confused than he was when he set out tonight.

He shows up at the rooftop eventually, figuring that's where Warren would be if he wasn't at home.

[venus_afflicted]

Warren hasn't moved. Okay, that's not true. He has the ashes on his shirt to indicate that he's been smoking and, not that Jean-Paul would know, but sometime around midnight or so he'd taken a leak off the alley side of the roof.

For now he's just sitting there, staring at the lights.

[lust_for_life]

He shoves his hands in his pockets. He smells like bars, cigarettes and alcohol and a mixture of colognes and sweaty punks losing hold of their Elmer's glue mohawks.

"Hey," he says finally.

[venus_afflicted]

He'd heard him there. Sound echoed up here but he wasn't going to speak first. Sighing, he lit a fresh cig and slumped.

"Next time, could you please, all I ask, is please text me the first time with leave you alone or some shit. I know you don't like it and I'll learn to control it, or hide it, but I do worry."

[lust_for_life]

"That'd be hard. I threw my phone out the window. I think I hit a hobo in the head." He toed the ground. "Yeah, that was kind of immature."

[venus_afflicted]

"Oh. I... Sorry." He took a drag before digging into his pocket and holding up his. "Here."

[lust_for_life]

"No." He looked down. "Look, I'm not really upset at you. I'm upset, but... not at you. And sometimes when I'm upset I act like a spoiled five year old. So, I'm sorry."

[venus_afflicted]

He held out the phone a minute longer before lowering it. Silent a long time, not quite looking at Jean-Paul.

"If you say so. I just... after the Piotr in that other hell... I mean nexus and... It wasn't my place, it's not my right and you shouldn't be apologizing." Not that it didn't stun him because he didn't hear it often.

[lust_for_life]

He tilted his head. "What is 'your place'?"

[venus_afflicted]

He shrugged. "To be your boyfriend, your friend. Not to fight with your other friends." He voice just barely hitchs on that word.

[lust_for_life]

"He's not my friend." He sighed and sat down near the ledge, his legs dangling over the side. "Not anymore, anyway."

[venus_afflicted]

'Because you started seeing me." He's firmly convinced of this.

[lust_for_life]

"No. Because he disappeared on me twice. Because every time I bring him up you get really insecure and upset, and I'm tired of dealing with it, and I'm tired of being hurt, so I've been a dick to him in the hopes that he'd leave for good."

[venus_afflicted]

Okay, now he feels like a dick.

"Don't do that cause of me. I'm better. I am. This didn't have jack shit to do with who but what he said."