More puzzle pieces
Soup's almost ready. Well, it is ready, but I'm not.
Thinking.
Meeting the agents yesterday didn't work out. Bless Minnie for trying (finally! Not that I'm bitter or anything), but I can't see myself working with either of that pair. The one was younger than I am, some fresh-faced girl right out of agent school . . . and the other one kept blowing his nasty cigar smoke in my face and rubbing his foot against my leg under the table. I guess he thought that all the kicking he was getting in return was a turn-on. Kyrie eleison.
I shouldn't be as tempted as I am by Andy's suggestion of returning to the Post, even if he could get me a foot in the door. (Or if he could even remember he said he'd try. Idiot boy. Good thing Jaz is there to crack the whip, or he never would have lasted as long as he has.) It's a freaking tabloid these days, and I'm not a tabloid journalist, thank you.
I'm not a Rolling Stone journalist, either, thank you, MSNBC producer who left that high-pitched babble on my messages over the weekend. What was that crap about "the reformed liberal's point of view"? Am I supposed to be a conservative who reformed into a liberal or a liberal who reformed into . . . whatever liberals reform into? Mystical twittering butterflies, maybe. The evolution of the liberal, from bleeding-heart primordial ooze to glowing interdimensional beings who still can't shut up about everyone needing to feel gosh-darned good about themselves, awww.
Shut up and get off my phone, you freak. (And learn how to disambiguate the goddamn language you purport to speak.) That's not me. That's not going to be me. Some of us do stick to our guns, you know. And know how to use them. I'm not a violent person, but Jesus-
Screw it. Time to go feed Rossi. Put on a happy face, woman!
8/22/2005
Logfile from Leah.
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Old Brownstone Apts #210 - Rossi
An ancient, faded elegance sketches the boundaries of this apartment, hinted at in crown molding and worn, faded floors. High walls span to high ceilings, pale yellow with the barest of white trim; at one end, three high windows gape to let in day's light or night's dark with equal indifference. A small kitchen pocks a hollow in one wall, a doorless entry that offers glimpses of an metal-framed refrigerator and a cabinet-hung microwave. On the other side of the small living room, a short hallway offers entrances to bathroom and bedroom, both doors battered with the wear and tear of age.
In the living room are the basic accoutrements of comfort: sofas, chairs, table, television. Spartan accessories, betraying little of the owner; that task is left for the walls, hung with pictures of family and friends. Through them all runs the thread of blue, NYPD's uniform tailored to pride and vigor.
--
Julia has been and gone, as the slow, curdling smell of burnt toast and eggs proclaims, and has left behind her the kind of mess more descriptive of hordes: children, dogs, small monkeys. The detritus of her presence describes itself in abandoned plates and feminine goods, left willy-nilly through the living room; here a sock, there a tampon, and over the television's broad shelf, a sports bra. Clad in dark green sweatpants, bare-torsoed, hair an untamed mop, Chris Rossi stands in the middle of his apartment and curses in sonorous apathy.
Leah is rather more dressed than some invalids in her life -- jeans and a NYU T-shirt, anyway -- as she comes padding on bare feet down the hallway outside. /Slowly/ padding, that is: the crockpot suspended between oven-mitted hands demands due care and will not tolerate splashing or (Heaven forfend!) spilling. It does allow being placed by the door so she can knock, but /only/ (the steam rising around the lid's cap gently insists) as a temporary measure.
The door flies open on Chris's too-vigorous tug, bounding into the spring at the baseboard to slam back into his arm. "...shit," he seconds to that chance blow, jerking the injured limb too late from contact. Bandages cloak the plane of chest, a mantle that makes the barest nod to modesty; tape wrinkles around them, kinking to the other hand's swipe over blinking surprise. "Canto. What time is it?"
"Breakfast, though I brought lunch and dinner," replies a serene Leah. She stoops again to fetch the crockpot for its cantilevered hover before her, and nods imperiously at him. "If you could step aside? This is heavy. And hot."
Belatedly obedient, Chris crowds into the wall to let Leah pass, fingernails idling over white gauze. Itchy. "Thanks. This rate, I'm gonna be fat by the time I get back to work," he observes, kicking the door closed in the woman's wake. "Melcross brought me Italian yesterday. Smells good. What is it?"
Leah trails steam fat with spices and words just as heavy with amusement: "She's turning into a good little cop's friend, huh? We'll make her blue yet, at this rate -- or Italian." The crockpot gets a thumped landing on the stovetop, and she starts peeling off her mitts, smiling a little over the counter back at him. "Three-bean soup. Got the tomatoes and herbs fresh from a farmer's market yesterday, and it's been simmering all night, just for you. Should last you awhile, and you can keep it in the fridge and nuke it to reheat. Who loves ya, baby?"
Chris ghosts a grin at the closed door and wanders after Leah, coming up against the dubious harbor of kitchen's entrance. One shoulder pins there, leaning him at a slant to support the wall -- or, from a different perspective, be supported. "You're a lifesaver, Canto. Julia's--" The kitchen is a disaster. He gestures aimlessly at the soaking pans and finishes, lamely, "--not a great cook."
Leah's gaze has already dropped to the ... mess. She does swipe a look when he hangs himself near, and it's mingled exasperation, affection, and resignation. "She's not so hot as a maid, either. Looks like I'll busy for a little while, huh? You'd better pull up the couch, get comfy." She tosses the mitts onto the stove by the pot, sighs, and wonders, "Where do you keep your cleaning products?"
"Don't worry about it," suggests Chris, turning his own jaded eye to the sink and associated disasters. Arms fold gingerly, binding into a loose knot. "I'll get to it eventually. Or Julia or Mikey will. You've got better things to do than clean up crap." Don't you? Baritone lofts towards uncertainty, half-lost in a hand's creep up.
Not really, mica-flat and mica-shiny alto replies: "Oh, it's okay. I'm a great cleaner, and it'll help you out, so." Leah shrugs and crouches to poke under the sink, a likely hiding spot for products. Hello? Mr. Clean, you there? Your buddy Ajax? "How you feelin'? I didn't see any new holes in the wall, and the bandage looks good."
Chris concedes the point with an indifferent, "Better. Apartment's driving me nuts. Have some appointments in the city today that Mikey's driving me to, later. Docs, precinct, that sort of thing." The cabinet under the sink proves a treasure trove of chemicals and sterilizing intent: sponges, buckets, the accoutrements of cleanliness. Rossi likes his apartment spic-and-span, thankyouverymuch.
Leah starts hauling out what she needs, which ... is pretty much all of it. Oh, Julia. "Really?" She cocks up a puzzled look now, following its rise on a climb to her feet with a sponge in one hand and a bucket in the other. "Hell, Rossi, go take a walk around the block. It's been pretty nice outside, and there's nothing wrong with your legs, right?" She eyes them dubiously.
"...Nah. Nothing wrong with 'em," Rossi says after a moment, guilt creeping into the nook of shadow below crouched brows. A nudge props him upright again, turning him back towards the living room and the sofa's perennial comfort. Legs stretch long across the cushions, head pillowed on an padded arm that still smells faintly of Julia's shampoo. "I'll do that later, maybe. See what the great outdoors feels like. See if I remember what it's like sniffing something other than burned toast."
"Take you out myself once I've got this place in order," Leah says complacently, starting to sponge crusts and other food-y detritus off the counters and into the bucket. Watch out, sink; you're next. "Maybe you should keep her away for a while. Or, if she comes over again and starts making a mess, you can toss something shiny out into the hallway to lure her away and then slam the door and lock it."
The growl of a yawn answers from the sofa's bed, smothered behind a forearm's mask. "She's made herself useful a few times," Chris admits, cocking a blank eye at a packet of Playtex seated on the sofa arm with his head. What the--? A hand pokes it off the ledge onto the floor. Go away. "Mikey was over last night, too. Two of them played video games all night, I think."
The bucket finds a resting place on the floor while Leah tackles the sink's contents. Over the rattle of pans and sploosh of water, she chuckles, "Sure did something all night. Did you get any sleep? Poor Rossi. A man can't even recuperate in the privacy of his own home."
"Slept all night. Like a newborn babe," attests Chris, gravely lifting an unseen hand: scout's honor, ma'am. "Woke up right before you knocked. Company's good. Keeps me from staring at the walls too much. Just not into the whole watching DVDs and playing video games crap that people do. --How do you stand it?" Rossi tilts his head back, pitching his voice across the gap between sofa and kitchen. "It'd drive me nuts, being at home all the time."
"I keep myself busy," Leah chirps. /Chirps,/ forsooth. So perky! The pans rattle some more, and then the tap rinses them off for drying. "You know, emails, phone calls, research online, and long walks in which I think great thoughts. That's the key: don't be inside /all/ the time. Sometimes I go to that coffeeshop across from the comic-book store and work. Not much going on now, of course, but... Well, and there's always some reason to go down to the city, too. Friends, family, what have you. Pity not your freelance neighbor. She's doing okay. Really."
The torrent of words exhausts Chris, who lets his forearm flop limply back over his eyes again for a moment's blessed silence. Then, prodded by hospitality's weak tripod, he submits, "Couldn't do it. Drive me nuts. Driving me nuts. What kinda coffee you drink this morning, Canto? You're like freaking Mary Poppins in there. Got some left over?"
Leah informs him loftily, "I am energized by the milk of human kindness. Not that energetic milk is a great image, but you know what I mean. Chris, I can't help you heal. I can't help you get back on the job. I can't help you /do/ your job. I /can/ clean your damn apartment. So, I am."
"Canto," says Chris, mellow. "You /care/."
A snort. The tap runs again. Turns off. "No shit, Sherlock. You figure that out all by yourself?"
Eyes blink upside-down, inspecting the unique view of a kitchen on the ceiling. "Kinda weird," Chris concedes. "Hadn't thought about it. When'd that happen?"
"You're a cop, you're kinda part of the family through the whole Gabe and Julia thing, and you're my neighbor." Leah pauses in scouring the bottom of the emptied sink and stares across the way. Blinks back. "Shit, Rossi. Did you really-- I'm not that much of a bitch, am I? Just use you for sex and arguments and not give a damn the rest of the time?" Blinks again. And turns sharply away, giving him the taut line of her back.
"Hadn't thought about it," reminds Chris, arching himself off the sofa's immediate support with a press of feet against the other chair arm. The line of throat strains against the skin, flattening baritone; small crackles and pops adjust the spine's chain to the relief of early morning stiffness. "Guess my brain's kinda used to the idea of us hating each other. Back from before. Sorry, Canto. Chalk it up to me being a guy."
Leah mutters, "Guess so," and turns her scouring power on the stovetop. "--Look, if you'd rather I /not/ care, hey, I can do that. No reason we can't turn up at the same barbeques and yell at each other until they kick us out. Good times, right?"
Rossi considers, collapsing back into his sofa with a slow hand's massage for pain. "If you want. Kinda like it better this way. Don't think I have it in me to yell right now. Rain check?" Voice and eyes grin for the ceiling; the mouth, rebel that it is, simply grimaces. "Put that crap down, Canto. C'mere and talk to me."
"Not while you've got crap in here that might well evolve into sentience before our very eyes," Leah replies snappily. Perky again. Brightly, sharply, defensively perky. Scour, scour. Scour! The counters are clean, the sink is clean, the dishes are clean, and by God, the stovetop will be clean, too. "Don't get all high-handed on me just because you're wounded and you're bored. Trying to do you a favor over here."
"I know. It's depressing me. Christ. How does Julia make that much mess in an hour? Normal people'd need a tribe of howler monkeys on crack." Chris peers down the length of his body, an arm tucking cautiously behind his head, and gently toes a sock off the sofa onto the floor. What else can we dispense with? Remote under his hip. Thump. Discovers, "Should put a shirt on."
Leah produces a chuckle. "She's talented, our Julia. I'm sure she'd have no idea what you're talking about if you asked her, though. Just the way she goes through life." She tosses the scouring pad into the sink, stands with arms akimbo, and surveys her work. One kitchen: subdued. "...Don't get modest on my behalf, boyo. Nothing I haven't seen before. Are you cold? Want some of this soup? Or a blanket?"
Irritation pricks at the reply, needling under the skin. "I'm not a fucking cripple, Canto. I can ... shit." Rossi drags himself out of the cushions, planting bare feet firmly on the carpet before rising to straggle into the bedroom, trailing temper behind him.
Leah swings her survey after him, and looks briefly pissed, herself. /At/ herself, by the swiftly muttered curse and kick aimed at the bucket. But she's a good girl, so she fetches the bucket back at the end of its startled skitter, empties and rinses it, and lets it dry upside down in the sink. Then she goes to start on the living room's mess. Cleaning moves on. So does she, and determinedly without any glances at the bedroom.
...and then Rossi is back, demurely clad in a long-sleeved, button-down shirt and faded blue jeans. Civilized man. He pauses at the end of the hallway, leaning into the wall to work his way up small buttons; hooded eyes watch Leah's progress through the living room, unreadable. "Sorry," he offers after a moment. "Been pretty bad-tempered the last few days. Didn't mean to snap at you."
"Yes, you did." Leah says it casually, calmly, and does look at him now, with quietly folded mouth and a flare to nostrils and eyes' glittering pallor. "I set you off, and you snapped. Don't worry about it. At least this time it didn't end up with Julia's motorcycle up a tree in the backyard." Manufacturing a little smile, she perches on a couch arm to fold the clothes she's gathered. "I didn't mean to coddle you. I know you aren't a cripple. I suck at caring. Sorry."
Guilt feeds tinder to the flare of temper, bitten off behind a tightened jaw. "Right," Chris manages after a second, dropping the word into the roll of sleeves. Shirt untucked -- screw it -- he pads back to the sofa and lowers himself into it, resentfully betraying fragility. "I'm crappy company. Don't know why you guys put up with me. You're doing fine. I'm just being an asshole."
Clothes are done. Coffee table's clean. Floor's clean. Leah sits on her perch and considers the rest of the space: what next? "You're not an asshole," and she puts a little annoyed bite into the words. Tough love. "You're going through a rough time and all that happy pop-psych shit. Be in a bad mood. Since when does that bug me? I'm just sorry that I set you off." She skews him a wary sidelong look. "And that you don't trust me to go off? /I'm/ not a fucking cripple, either."
"Christ. Never mind. Forget I said anything." Exasperation bleeds into Rossi's voice, stealing color from the thin press of lips. He expands warily into the sofa's embrace, legs extended under the coffee table: room for Leah there, see? He pats it with a tentative invitation. "Thanks for cleaning for me. Makes me crazy, living like a pig. Think I'm a failure as a bachelor."
"Are you married?" Leah asks as she falls over into the space, the invitation. The couch -- oof. She stretches out her legs, too, and slumps into the cushions. Studies her bare toes. Hi, toes. "As long as the answer to that question is 'no,' you're a success as a bachelor. We both are. Just -- don't /worry/ about it. Any of it." Her voice drops; she frowns. "Just sit here and think nice healing thoughts. That's your job."
Leveraged across the back of the sofa, one arm bends to prop Chris's tangled head on the backs of knuckles. "Worry's what we do, Canto," he reminds, good humor fleetingly restored in the pitch and sway of baritone. "Italian /and/ Catholic. Think that trumps pretty much everyone. Anyway, healing thoughts bore the shit out of me. --Hey. Saw that article in the Rolling Stone. Julia brought it. Around here somewhere--"
Leah winces. "Shit, don't worry about that, either. No big deal." The shoulder near him hunches in unconscious shielding, and her fingers thread into a tight basket-weave on her lap. She's staring holes into her feet, too, but tries to keep her voice light. "I've been answering way too many questions about it. /Now/ the talk shows want me on again, but as a guest! God. Can you imagine? I'm the griller, not the grillee."
"Read it already," Chris says, flipping fingers to brush nonexistent lint off his sofa's arm. "If you were planning on not having people read it, probably shouldn't have picked Rolling Stone to hide it in. Gonna do the shows?" Curiosity peers at Leah from beneath the mop of black hair.
"If I have to," comes reluctant admission. Leah's hands part to slide up her arms in a cross, a rub over tensed biceps. She sighs. "Keep my name out there, that kind of thing. I don't have much to say, really, but I guess a couple of 'em want to talk about my going over to the liberal side. Which I /haven't,/ but. Shit. I could give them an earful about that--" a bitter grin slashed over at him "--but they wouldn't like it. Get my mike cut off."
Politics. Chris hunkers into his poorly fortified position on the couch, showing the whites of eyes in marbled distaste. "Not my thing," he says vaguely: to all of it, media, liberals, conservatives. "Let the politicians do their thing. And you all in the press, whatever. I'll just deal with the clean-up. Anyway, we got Paul and Gabe in the family; anything more would be overkill." Like the daisies that currently occupy almost every available surface in the apartment. He nudges a vase with a foot, puzzled.
Leah accuses him, "And you wanted me to talk," but without much heat. The daisies are soaking it up, or she's more tired than her chipper surface is letting on. "Does this mean I /am/ in the family?" Her head lolls against the couch back so she can flutter her spiky little eyelashes at him. "Julia and I will invite you to our wedding. It's sure to be a smashing affair, in every sense of the word."
"I'll give a toast," promises Rossi, attention flicking in gentle, feather-light touches across Leah's face: reading, interpreting, analyzing. "It'll be great. I'll talk about how you worked your way up the Rossi quality until you got to the best of the lot. There'll be tears in the audience. Mostly from guys Julia's already slept with, but she stays buds with them, go figure. It'll make the first dance interesting if you have to compete for it."
"Thank you." Contented, Leah drops her chin back to her chest and her gaze back to her feet. Her profile offers up few clues now, beyond the twitch of mouth's corner for the banter -- and that obvious focus away from him, of course. "Ain't nobody competing with /me/ for the first dance. It's tradition! And, anyway, I'd beat 'em. She's mine. They had their chance to make an honest woman out of her, and they missed it."
The mildest of snorts advises how Rossi feels about /that/ chance -- Julia as an honest woman, indeed! -- and he drags a foot onto the couch with him, feet newly clad in plain white socks. "If I thought you were being serious, I'd send you to see a shrink," he notes dryly. "Have a daisy instead. I got lots. There's some sort of message that goes with flowers, right? Should've asked what daisies stand for."
Leah rolls her eyes, but leaves it at that (a shrink, for the love of--) in favor of musing, "Well, you can pluck their petals for 'he loves me, he loves me not' ... and you have enough here to do that for all of the women /you've/ slept with, Rossi, never mind your sister's doings. Was there a card?"
Another finger flick, this time for the television. "Up there somewhere. Or it's on the ground, somewhere around -- no name. Something about guns, and damned if I know what that means." Chris scratches idly at his chest again, thoughtless, then props the strut of his arm on his knee's bend. "Anonymous well-wisher?"
Rolling up off the couch, Leah starts hunting for this mysterious card. "Guns?" she repeats with a startled blink back. "Who'd send you -- oh, of course. It's /behind/ the TV. Yay." She drops to her knees to root around blindly, and keeps her face turned to him to display a grimace. "Anonymous well-wisher writing about guns ... that's fucked up. --Got it!" And she sits up on her heels to scan it. And frown. And then look immediately guilty.
"Thought it was pretty funny," confesses Chris -- should he not have? -- and pitches cynical appreciation to the card in Leah's hand: one bastard to another. "The flowers were a little ... overkill, though. Barely enough room in the hospital for them. The nurses were freaking out. Would've left them there, but /Mom/--"
Leah tosses the card onto the table by the vase and rubs her hand over her face. "...Jesus." Caught in her thoughts; not listening. "I didn't think he'd actually do it."
Chris squints up. "This is your fault, somehow?" Witness the surprise. "Figures."
"Fuck off. Yeah, I guess so." Leah drops hands on lap and shoulders into bowed curve. Her head's high in pricked challenge, though. "Just a guy I had drinks with, okay? You got into it with him over a gun -- you and Lazzaro -- and he said he'd send you flowers." Her truculent gaze sweeps the nodding expanse of those flowers, and she snorts. "He's a rich idiot, so this must be his. Raymond Hubbard. Ring a bell?"
"Nope. You got any idea how many people I've gotten into it over a gun? Beston alone-- oh." Not Beston. Lazzaro. Chris's face goes blank, filtering through the internal rolodex of memory. "--Rich guy. Central Park. Cracker Jack gun. Yeah, that sounds right. Why's he sending me flowers? Christ. Is he gay?" An eye rolls at the flowers, mildly bemused.
Leah smiles. "Ask Emma Frost. He had dinner with her."
"Again with the Emma Frost." Bewilderment slides deeper into Chris's face, and over it, stencil-sharp, detective suspicion carves its shape. "That's the second time in as many days -- and then there's that guy Shaw, and.... weird shit."
Leah's mobile Italian face is eloquent enough on the subject of that guy Shaw that she doesn't -- won't -- actually speak to it, but leave it lying by the side of the conversational road like the dead raccoon it (and he) is. "What, she's coming up in your conversations now? Ray Hubbard and now the divine Ms. Frost ... oh, Rossi. You will be leaving us poor proles far behind as you move into these rarified social circles. Please remember us when you do. Send us cake, maybe. We like cake, we little people."
The cop grins briefly, showing his teeth. "Bite me," he invites with cordial crudity, offering a finger to go with it. "Damn. Well, wouldn't be the first time I get flowers from a gay guy, but -- Christ. Lazzaro'll love this. Wonder if he got some?" Straight or no, competition burns high in Rossi.
"Some flowers," Leah asks on her sway to her feet, "or some gay man?"
Chris's grin waxes hotter. "Either. Or. I don't care. You can have the gay guy. And the flowers."
Leah goes back to her akimbo stance, and her expression shades to regret. "Chris. Do not flash me the sexy smile if you can't follow through on it -- and you /are/ still recuperating, so." So she sniffs and then eases into, "He's not gay. Doesn't set off the little bell that way. He's just ... tidy. Composed. Thoughtful. He made his driver take me home, all the way from downtown. He's a decent guy. A racist redneck who spouts off without actually /doing/ anything, but..." She shrugs off the mantle of prickly bitterness. "Not a /bad/ guy."
Chris points out, illogically, "Man sent me, like, a thousand daisies. If that's not gay, I don't know what is. You should've seen his gun, Canto. It was all pretty and shiny, like he bought it out of fucking Vogue."
Leah laughs at that. "Oh, come on. He's a rich kid. The hell does he know about guns? He's not /gay/ for it. Just -- a little dumb. A little. Good intentions; no follow-through."
"That's half of New York City you're talking about there," points out Chris, knitting both hands across his stomach so he can slouch further still into the couch. The barest pang of discomfort shatters behind his eyes' hood, and he amends, "--except the rich part."
"Well, true, but it's just daisies. They're pretty." Leah's fingers trail over the nearest grazing flock on her way back to the couch. She refrains from flopping -- settles in slowly and gingerly. Pats his leg. "And they cheer the place up, admit it. An oil tycoon with a pretty gun sent you pretty flowers. You are loved, Christopher Rossi. You are /loved./"
"You never told me /why/ he sent me the flowers." Rossi eyes the patted leg with deep skepticism, and coasts his gaze past it to the crafty table and its burden.
Leah comments, "Might be because I don't remember. I was busy working on getting plastered at the time. Sorry."
Rossi blinks solemnly at Leah. "You sleep with him?" Inquiring minds.
Leah rolls her eyes at Rossi. "No." Bored minds.
"Rich guy," reminds Rossi, blithely mercenary. "Trophy wife could be your calling, Canto. Melcross wasn't interested."
"/She/ got a diamond bracelet from Tiffany's," says the woman scorned, though she sounds more mournful than anything else. Poor Leah. "Me, he buys beers for. I'm a drinking buddy. You don't marry your drinking buddy, not unless she's the last possible choice. And anyway--" she bumps her knee against his: listen up, bunky "--I had my chance at trophy-dom. That's what Gabe wanted out of me."
Reminds the affectionate younger brother, "Gabe's poor. Relatively speaking. Anyway, asshole didn't even buy me a card." And now Chris is keeping score. His head shifts against the sofa, searching for better comfort than that offered by the seat's back; black hair, already rumpled, zig-zags on static charge into a hedgehog halo around his skull. Poof. "Go for the gay guy with the gun."
Leah grants, "I would've been a working trophy wife, but he definitely wanted to display me. And mold me. Make me a good little woman in the kitchen and the bedroom. Asshole." She wiggles around to peer at him. "Are you /trying/ to set me up with this guy?"
A green eye slivers at Leah, shiny and perfect. "You are a /bad/ little woman in the bedroom," opines Chris, comfortably. "And pretty damn good in the kitchen. Dunno. Nah. Maybe. Isn't that the way it's supposed to work? Boy meets girl, boy marries girl, boy and girl make more boys and girls? How'd you meet him, anyway?"
"Car wreck," is Leah's pithy summary. "Met Sabby the same way. Same wreck, even. Helluva city."
"D'you meet Emma Frost and Sebastian Shaw that way, too?"
"Haven't met either, thanks. I don't travel in those circles, you do, remember? You and Sabby."
"You're the one having drinks with rich guys," Rossi notes, closing his eyes to their purple, tranquil stain. "I'm just having drinks with ... well, with Lazzaro and Summers. And then things explode. That'll teach me."
Leah murmurs, "Poor Scott," then shakes her head, rumpling her hair into its own staticky protest against the couch back. "Well, Sabby has us both beat because she's fucking rich guys. Nothing's exploding, though. You win, there. Vincent's doing okay, right? Haven't seen him."
Chris twitches in his seat, couching his chin on his chest. Contorted through the odd angle, his voice emerges hollow and flat. "Yeah. Julia thinks he's ... cute."
"Oh, God." Leah's hand cages the chortle working its way out of her mouth. "He's dead meat now. Isn't he? The next tally mark on her bedpost..."
Julia's older brother cracks open an eye. "Canto, do you mind?" Protesting anguish. "I don't need to hear that. Among other things."
"Sorry. Sorry. I forgot." Leah pats his arm. Down, boy. "Won't say another word. My delicate little flower. The daisies do suit you. I'll set you and Ray up for drinks."
Retaliation is swift and immediate. Chris hooks Leah's arm and reels her in for a firm kiss, followed up by a growling, "Flower, my /ass/. --Ow. Shit."
Leah's free arm plunges down between them to prop her away from him. It's awkward. Knees and elbows. But a smile, too. "Gonna kill yourself at this rate," she tells him softly and kisses back. "--Recuperating, aren't you? Did you tweak it?"
"It's fine," Chris asserts, moodily pressing at the bandaged chest with the heel of a palm. "No sex, no drugs, no rock and roll -- feel like I'm in Catholic school again, except /without/ all the stuff that made it fun."
Leah sits down, anyway -- on his lap, granted, but it /is/ sitting. Good girl, indeed. She studies him from there, all furrowed brows and flickering dead-leaf eyes beneath them. "I think I should've gone to your school, then," she decides. "We had no fun. None. The sisters saw to that, count that."
Somewhere behind the mask of eyes, a boyish smile creeps out of hiding and dons its cap of mischief. "Where there's a will," Chris begins, and: "Ow. Had some good times back in the day. Should look some of my old classmates up, since I'm out of commission for a while." An absent-minded hand warms Leah's thigh, idly massaging; the other, refreshed on the sofa's back, steeples the hollow of temple.
Leah brushes at his staticky hair, then rubs a thumb over his brow: amused absolution. "Sure, why not? I'm not promising to come over and clean up after them, though."
"Probably be depressing," opines Chris, forehead furrowing under the path of Leah's thumb. The long gaze goes blank, casting back over the haze of years. "Seeing some of those guys again -- maybe better not. Christ. I got all this leisure time and got no idea what to do with any of it. Know what I'd do if I had a /choice/, but doctor's orders--"
Leah slides down to kiss him again -- her choice, too -- and then slides off to rest on his other side, with her legs still crooked over his lap and under that massaging touch. Tucking folded arms behind her head, she gets comfortable and tells him, "Call them. Or someone. Hell, call Vincent. He's down a floor, right? You guys can hang out and play video games." Her grin gleams feminine innocence. "Whatever it is you guys do when you're alone. Smoke, drink beer, scratch yourselves."
Eyes roll, focusing for that image. "Lazzaro'd probably kick my ass at video games. He and Mikey could bond over that." Only the barest tickle of competitive spirit rouses for the admission; Chris has his limits, it seems. A twitch of distress deepens the background web of pain behind the face, briefly deepening shadows around his mouth, and Rossi stirs with: "I'll call him over tomorrow to help eat that Italian Melcross brought."
"And you can talk about Melcross," Leah presumes, watching his face with more attention than her drifting alto allows. "Give him some of my soup, too. Does he have folks to bring things over for him? Poor Vincent."
And there, again: guilt, however fleeting. "Don't think so. Julia took him some beer the other day, I think. Shit." Chris shifts again, uneasy for both thoughts. "Mind sharing your soup with him? Mikey can go over there with some later."
Leah assures him, "Not at all. Plenty more where it came from, since I didn't know when I was shopping how long you'd be laid up." She unfolds her arms to prod his side with a chary finger. "Fatten you up, man. Fat and happy Rossi, cosseted by all his peeps."
Chris twitches away. "Shit. Stop that." Ticklish. One hand snaps to catch that intrusive hand, pinning the arm behind her back. Two more steps to the handcuffs.
After an instinctive squawk of protest, Leah wiggles experimentally against the hold, as much testing its extent as taunting her body against his. And she lowers a brilliant eye over her shoulder at him. "Oh, /this/ doesn't hurt you? You must be feeling better already, my daisy."
"/Stop/ that." The taunting, the wiggling -- Chris glowers at Leah and, for good measure, captures her other arm to wind it behind her in company with the first. In spite of weakness, domination; natural superiority of strength and training. Not to mention other things. Temper. Libido. "Canto, Christ. Have a heart. I'm not supposed to--"
"--Have a heart attack. I know." Leah wilts against him in a swoon rich with nigh-Victorian grief. Again with the fluttering lashes. And a grin. "Not that you're helping your own cause, here, Daisy. Be a helluva way to go, though, huh? Admit it."
An eyebrow arches, mocking and sardonic. "Like a ricochet from my own fucking gun isn't? --Sorry. Lazzaro's. Precinct would've giggled through my funeral." Chris loosens his grip on Leah's hands, a watchful eye alert for new assaults. "Stop calling me Daisy."
Leah's laughter moves through her shoulder into his chest as she stays resting against him, though she does reclaim her hands, thankyouverymuch. Studies them for signs of police brutality, in fact. "Fine. /Detective/ Daisy. You people and your shields--"
A broad hand closes over Leah's mouth, muzzling. There. Chris tips his head back onto the sofa's pillow and closes his eyes, face tranquil.
--Brutality! Leah snickers into the muzzle and tips her head into his shoulder. Quiet, then. They can do that. She can do that.
[Log ends.]
Thinking.
Meeting the agents yesterday didn't work out. Bless Minnie for trying (finally! Not that I'm bitter or anything), but I can't see myself working with either of that pair. The one was younger than I am, some fresh-faced girl right out of agent school . . . and the other one kept blowing his nasty cigar smoke in my face and rubbing his foot against my leg under the table. I guess he thought that all the kicking he was getting in return was a turn-on. Kyrie eleison.
I shouldn't be as tempted as I am by Andy's suggestion of returning to the Post, even if he could get me a foot in the door. (Or if he could even remember he said he'd try. Idiot boy. Good thing Jaz is there to crack the whip, or he never would have lasted as long as he has.) It's a freaking tabloid these days, and I'm not a tabloid journalist, thank you.
I'm not a Rolling Stone journalist, either, thank you, MSNBC producer who left that high-pitched babble on my messages over the weekend. What was that crap about "the reformed liberal's point of view"? Am I supposed to be a conservative who reformed into a liberal or a liberal who reformed into . . . whatever liberals reform into? Mystical twittering butterflies, maybe. The evolution of the liberal, from bleeding-heart primordial ooze to glowing interdimensional beings who still can't shut up about everyone needing to feel gosh-darned good about themselves, awww.
Shut up and get off my phone, you freak. (And learn how to disambiguate the goddamn language you purport to speak.) That's not me. That's not going to be me. Some of us do stick to our guns, you know. And know how to use them. I'm not a violent person, but Jesus-
Screw it. Time to go feed Rossi. Put on a happy face, woman!
8/22/2005
Logfile from Leah.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Old Brownstone Apts #210 - Rossi
An ancient, faded elegance sketches the boundaries of this apartment, hinted at in crown molding and worn, faded floors. High walls span to high ceilings, pale yellow with the barest of white trim; at one end, three high windows gape to let in day's light or night's dark with equal indifference. A small kitchen pocks a hollow in one wall, a doorless entry that offers glimpses of an metal-framed refrigerator and a cabinet-hung microwave. On the other side of the small living room, a short hallway offers entrances to bathroom and bedroom, both doors battered with the wear and tear of age.
In the living room are the basic accoutrements of comfort: sofas, chairs, table, television. Spartan accessories, betraying little of the owner; that task is left for the walls, hung with pictures of family and friends. Through them all runs the thread of blue, NYPD's uniform tailored to pride and vigor.
--
Julia has been and gone, as the slow, curdling smell of burnt toast and eggs proclaims, and has left behind her the kind of mess more descriptive of hordes: children, dogs, small monkeys. The detritus of her presence describes itself in abandoned plates and feminine goods, left willy-nilly through the living room; here a sock, there a tampon, and over the television's broad shelf, a sports bra. Clad in dark green sweatpants, bare-torsoed, hair an untamed mop, Chris Rossi stands in the middle of his apartment and curses in sonorous apathy.
Leah is rather more dressed than some invalids in her life -- jeans and a NYU T-shirt, anyway -- as she comes padding on bare feet down the hallway outside. /Slowly/ padding, that is: the crockpot suspended between oven-mitted hands demands due care and will not tolerate splashing or (Heaven forfend!) spilling. It does allow being placed by the door so she can knock, but /only/ (the steam rising around the lid's cap gently insists) as a temporary measure.
The door flies open on Chris's too-vigorous tug, bounding into the spring at the baseboard to slam back into his arm. "...shit," he seconds to that chance blow, jerking the injured limb too late from contact. Bandages cloak the plane of chest, a mantle that makes the barest nod to modesty; tape wrinkles around them, kinking to the other hand's swipe over blinking surprise. "Canto. What time is it?"
"Breakfast, though I brought lunch and dinner," replies a serene Leah. She stoops again to fetch the crockpot for its cantilevered hover before her, and nods imperiously at him. "If you could step aside? This is heavy. And hot."
Belatedly obedient, Chris crowds into the wall to let Leah pass, fingernails idling over white gauze. Itchy. "Thanks. This rate, I'm gonna be fat by the time I get back to work," he observes, kicking the door closed in the woman's wake. "Melcross brought me Italian yesterday. Smells good. What is it?"
Leah trails steam fat with spices and words just as heavy with amusement: "She's turning into a good little cop's friend, huh? We'll make her blue yet, at this rate -- or Italian." The crockpot gets a thumped landing on the stovetop, and she starts peeling off her mitts, smiling a little over the counter back at him. "Three-bean soup. Got the tomatoes and herbs fresh from a farmer's market yesterday, and it's been simmering all night, just for you. Should last you awhile, and you can keep it in the fridge and nuke it to reheat. Who loves ya, baby?"
Chris ghosts a grin at the closed door and wanders after Leah, coming up against the dubious harbor of kitchen's entrance. One shoulder pins there, leaning him at a slant to support the wall -- or, from a different perspective, be supported. "You're a lifesaver, Canto. Julia's--" The kitchen is a disaster. He gestures aimlessly at the soaking pans and finishes, lamely, "--not a great cook."
Leah's gaze has already dropped to the ... mess. She does swipe a look when he hangs himself near, and it's mingled exasperation, affection, and resignation. "She's not so hot as a maid, either. Looks like I'll busy for a little while, huh? You'd better pull up the couch, get comfy." She tosses the mitts onto the stove by the pot, sighs, and wonders, "Where do you keep your cleaning products?"
"Don't worry about it," suggests Chris, turning his own jaded eye to the sink and associated disasters. Arms fold gingerly, binding into a loose knot. "I'll get to it eventually. Or Julia or Mikey will. You've got better things to do than clean up crap." Don't you? Baritone lofts towards uncertainty, half-lost in a hand's creep up.
Not really, mica-flat and mica-shiny alto replies: "Oh, it's okay. I'm a great cleaner, and it'll help you out, so." Leah shrugs and crouches to poke under the sink, a likely hiding spot for products. Hello? Mr. Clean, you there? Your buddy Ajax? "How you feelin'? I didn't see any new holes in the wall, and the bandage looks good."
Chris concedes the point with an indifferent, "Better. Apartment's driving me nuts. Have some appointments in the city today that Mikey's driving me to, later. Docs, precinct, that sort of thing." The cabinet under the sink proves a treasure trove of chemicals and sterilizing intent: sponges, buckets, the accoutrements of cleanliness. Rossi likes his apartment spic-and-span, thankyouverymuch.
Leah starts hauling out what she needs, which ... is pretty much all of it. Oh, Julia. "Really?" She cocks up a puzzled look now, following its rise on a climb to her feet with a sponge in one hand and a bucket in the other. "Hell, Rossi, go take a walk around the block. It's been pretty nice outside, and there's nothing wrong with your legs, right?" She eyes them dubiously.
"...Nah. Nothing wrong with 'em," Rossi says after a moment, guilt creeping into the nook of shadow below crouched brows. A nudge props him upright again, turning him back towards the living room and the sofa's perennial comfort. Legs stretch long across the cushions, head pillowed on an padded arm that still smells faintly of Julia's shampoo. "I'll do that later, maybe. See what the great outdoors feels like. See if I remember what it's like sniffing something other than burned toast."
"Take you out myself once I've got this place in order," Leah says complacently, starting to sponge crusts and other food-y detritus off the counters and into the bucket. Watch out, sink; you're next. "Maybe you should keep her away for a while. Or, if she comes over again and starts making a mess, you can toss something shiny out into the hallway to lure her away and then slam the door and lock it."
The growl of a yawn answers from the sofa's bed, smothered behind a forearm's mask. "She's made herself useful a few times," Chris admits, cocking a blank eye at a packet of Playtex seated on the sofa arm with his head. What the--? A hand pokes it off the ledge onto the floor. Go away. "Mikey was over last night, too. Two of them played video games all night, I think."
The bucket finds a resting place on the floor while Leah tackles the sink's contents. Over the rattle of pans and sploosh of water, she chuckles, "Sure did something all night. Did you get any sleep? Poor Rossi. A man can't even recuperate in the privacy of his own home."
"Slept all night. Like a newborn babe," attests Chris, gravely lifting an unseen hand: scout's honor, ma'am. "Woke up right before you knocked. Company's good. Keeps me from staring at the walls too much. Just not into the whole watching DVDs and playing video games crap that people do. --How do you stand it?" Rossi tilts his head back, pitching his voice across the gap between sofa and kitchen. "It'd drive me nuts, being at home all the time."
"I keep myself busy," Leah chirps. /Chirps,/ forsooth. So perky! The pans rattle some more, and then the tap rinses them off for drying. "You know, emails, phone calls, research online, and long walks in which I think great thoughts. That's the key: don't be inside /all/ the time. Sometimes I go to that coffeeshop across from the comic-book store and work. Not much going on now, of course, but... Well, and there's always some reason to go down to the city, too. Friends, family, what have you. Pity not your freelance neighbor. She's doing okay. Really."
The torrent of words exhausts Chris, who lets his forearm flop limply back over his eyes again for a moment's blessed silence. Then, prodded by hospitality's weak tripod, he submits, "Couldn't do it. Drive me nuts. Driving me nuts. What kinda coffee you drink this morning, Canto? You're like freaking Mary Poppins in there. Got some left over?"
Leah informs him loftily, "I am energized by the milk of human kindness. Not that energetic milk is a great image, but you know what I mean. Chris, I can't help you heal. I can't help you get back on the job. I can't help you /do/ your job. I /can/ clean your damn apartment. So, I am."
"Canto," says Chris, mellow. "You /care/."
A snort. The tap runs again. Turns off. "No shit, Sherlock. You figure that out all by yourself?"
Eyes blink upside-down, inspecting the unique view of a kitchen on the ceiling. "Kinda weird," Chris concedes. "Hadn't thought about it. When'd that happen?"
"You're a cop, you're kinda part of the family through the whole Gabe and Julia thing, and you're my neighbor." Leah pauses in scouring the bottom of the emptied sink and stares across the way. Blinks back. "Shit, Rossi. Did you really-- I'm not that much of a bitch, am I? Just use you for sex and arguments and not give a damn the rest of the time?" Blinks again. And turns sharply away, giving him the taut line of her back.
"Hadn't thought about it," reminds Chris, arching himself off the sofa's immediate support with a press of feet against the other chair arm. The line of throat strains against the skin, flattening baritone; small crackles and pops adjust the spine's chain to the relief of early morning stiffness. "Guess my brain's kinda used to the idea of us hating each other. Back from before. Sorry, Canto. Chalk it up to me being a guy."
Leah mutters, "Guess so," and turns her scouring power on the stovetop. "--Look, if you'd rather I /not/ care, hey, I can do that. No reason we can't turn up at the same barbeques and yell at each other until they kick us out. Good times, right?"
Rossi considers, collapsing back into his sofa with a slow hand's massage for pain. "If you want. Kinda like it better this way. Don't think I have it in me to yell right now. Rain check?" Voice and eyes grin for the ceiling; the mouth, rebel that it is, simply grimaces. "Put that crap down, Canto. C'mere and talk to me."
"Not while you've got crap in here that might well evolve into sentience before our very eyes," Leah replies snappily. Perky again. Brightly, sharply, defensively perky. Scour, scour. Scour! The counters are clean, the sink is clean, the dishes are clean, and by God, the stovetop will be clean, too. "Don't get all high-handed on me just because you're wounded and you're bored. Trying to do you a favor over here."
"I know. It's depressing me. Christ. How does Julia make that much mess in an hour? Normal people'd need a tribe of howler monkeys on crack." Chris peers down the length of his body, an arm tucking cautiously behind his head, and gently toes a sock off the sofa onto the floor. What else can we dispense with? Remote under his hip. Thump. Discovers, "Should put a shirt on."
Leah produces a chuckle. "She's talented, our Julia. I'm sure she'd have no idea what you're talking about if you asked her, though. Just the way she goes through life." She tosses the scouring pad into the sink, stands with arms akimbo, and surveys her work. One kitchen: subdued. "...Don't get modest on my behalf, boyo. Nothing I haven't seen before. Are you cold? Want some of this soup? Or a blanket?"
Irritation pricks at the reply, needling under the skin. "I'm not a fucking cripple, Canto. I can ... shit." Rossi drags himself out of the cushions, planting bare feet firmly on the carpet before rising to straggle into the bedroom, trailing temper behind him.
Leah swings her survey after him, and looks briefly pissed, herself. /At/ herself, by the swiftly muttered curse and kick aimed at the bucket. But she's a good girl, so she fetches the bucket back at the end of its startled skitter, empties and rinses it, and lets it dry upside down in the sink. Then she goes to start on the living room's mess. Cleaning moves on. So does she, and determinedly without any glances at the bedroom.
...and then Rossi is back, demurely clad in a long-sleeved, button-down shirt and faded blue jeans. Civilized man. He pauses at the end of the hallway, leaning into the wall to work his way up small buttons; hooded eyes watch Leah's progress through the living room, unreadable. "Sorry," he offers after a moment. "Been pretty bad-tempered the last few days. Didn't mean to snap at you."
"Yes, you did." Leah says it casually, calmly, and does look at him now, with quietly folded mouth and a flare to nostrils and eyes' glittering pallor. "I set you off, and you snapped. Don't worry about it. At least this time it didn't end up with Julia's motorcycle up a tree in the backyard." Manufacturing a little smile, she perches on a couch arm to fold the clothes she's gathered. "I didn't mean to coddle you. I know you aren't a cripple. I suck at caring. Sorry."
Guilt feeds tinder to the flare of temper, bitten off behind a tightened jaw. "Right," Chris manages after a second, dropping the word into the roll of sleeves. Shirt untucked -- screw it -- he pads back to the sofa and lowers himself into it, resentfully betraying fragility. "I'm crappy company. Don't know why you guys put up with me. You're doing fine. I'm just being an asshole."
Clothes are done. Coffee table's clean. Floor's clean. Leah sits on her perch and considers the rest of the space: what next? "You're not an asshole," and she puts a little annoyed bite into the words. Tough love. "You're going through a rough time and all that happy pop-psych shit. Be in a bad mood. Since when does that bug me? I'm just sorry that I set you off." She skews him a wary sidelong look. "And that you don't trust me to go off? /I'm/ not a fucking cripple, either."
"Christ. Never mind. Forget I said anything." Exasperation bleeds into Rossi's voice, stealing color from the thin press of lips. He expands warily into the sofa's embrace, legs extended under the coffee table: room for Leah there, see? He pats it with a tentative invitation. "Thanks for cleaning for me. Makes me crazy, living like a pig. Think I'm a failure as a bachelor."
"Are you married?" Leah asks as she falls over into the space, the invitation. The couch -- oof. She stretches out her legs, too, and slumps into the cushions. Studies her bare toes. Hi, toes. "As long as the answer to that question is 'no,' you're a success as a bachelor. We both are. Just -- don't /worry/ about it. Any of it." Her voice drops; she frowns. "Just sit here and think nice healing thoughts. That's your job."
Leveraged across the back of the sofa, one arm bends to prop Chris's tangled head on the backs of knuckles. "Worry's what we do, Canto," he reminds, good humor fleetingly restored in the pitch and sway of baritone. "Italian /and/ Catholic. Think that trumps pretty much everyone. Anyway, healing thoughts bore the shit out of me. --Hey. Saw that article in the Rolling Stone. Julia brought it. Around here somewhere--"
Leah winces. "Shit, don't worry about that, either. No big deal." The shoulder near him hunches in unconscious shielding, and her fingers thread into a tight basket-weave on her lap. She's staring holes into her feet, too, but tries to keep her voice light. "I've been answering way too many questions about it. /Now/ the talk shows want me on again, but as a guest! God. Can you imagine? I'm the griller, not the grillee."
"Read it already," Chris says, flipping fingers to brush nonexistent lint off his sofa's arm. "If you were planning on not having people read it, probably shouldn't have picked Rolling Stone to hide it in. Gonna do the shows?" Curiosity peers at Leah from beneath the mop of black hair.
"If I have to," comes reluctant admission. Leah's hands part to slide up her arms in a cross, a rub over tensed biceps. She sighs. "Keep my name out there, that kind of thing. I don't have much to say, really, but I guess a couple of 'em want to talk about my going over to the liberal side. Which I /haven't,/ but. Shit. I could give them an earful about that--" a bitter grin slashed over at him "--but they wouldn't like it. Get my mike cut off."
Politics. Chris hunkers into his poorly fortified position on the couch, showing the whites of eyes in marbled distaste. "Not my thing," he says vaguely: to all of it, media, liberals, conservatives. "Let the politicians do their thing. And you all in the press, whatever. I'll just deal with the clean-up. Anyway, we got Paul and Gabe in the family; anything more would be overkill." Like the daisies that currently occupy almost every available surface in the apartment. He nudges a vase with a foot, puzzled.
Leah accuses him, "And you wanted me to talk," but without much heat. The daisies are soaking it up, or she's more tired than her chipper surface is letting on. "Does this mean I /am/ in the family?" Her head lolls against the couch back so she can flutter her spiky little eyelashes at him. "Julia and I will invite you to our wedding. It's sure to be a smashing affair, in every sense of the word."
"I'll give a toast," promises Rossi, attention flicking in gentle, feather-light touches across Leah's face: reading, interpreting, analyzing. "It'll be great. I'll talk about how you worked your way up the Rossi quality until you got to the best of the lot. There'll be tears in the audience. Mostly from guys Julia's already slept with, but she stays buds with them, go figure. It'll make the first dance interesting if you have to compete for it."
"Thank you." Contented, Leah drops her chin back to her chest and her gaze back to her feet. Her profile offers up few clues now, beyond the twitch of mouth's corner for the banter -- and that obvious focus away from him, of course. "Ain't nobody competing with /me/ for the first dance. It's tradition! And, anyway, I'd beat 'em. She's mine. They had their chance to make an honest woman out of her, and they missed it."
The mildest of snorts advises how Rossi feels about /that/ chance -- Julia as an honest woman, indeed! -- and he drags a foot onto the couch with him, feet newly clad in plain white socks. "If I thought you were being serious, I'd send you to see a shrink," he notes dryly. "Have a daisy instead. I got lots. There's some sort of message that goes with flowers, right? Should've asked what daisies stand for."
Leah rolls her eyes, but leaves it at that (a shrink, for the love of--) in favor of musing, "Well, you can pluck their petals for 'he loves me, he loves me not' ... and you have enough here to do that for all of the women /you've/ slept with, Rossi, never mind your sister's doings. Was there a card?"
Another finger flick, this time for the television. "Up there somewhere. Or it's on the ground, somewhere around -- no name. Something about guns, and damned if I know what that means." Chris scratches idly at his chest again, thoughtless, then props the strut of his arm on his knee's bend. "Anonymous well-wisher?"
Rolling up off the couch, Leah starts hunting for this mysterious card. "Guns?" she repeats with a startled blink back. "Who'd send you -- oh, of course. It's /behind/ the TV. Yay." She drops to her knees to root around blindly, and keeps her face turned to him to display a grimace. "Anonymous well-wisher writing about guns ... that's fucked up. --Got it!" And she sits up on her heels to scan it. And frown. And then look immediately guilty.
"Thought it was pretty funny," confesses Chris -- should he not have? -- and pitches cynical appreciation to the card in Leah's hand: one bastard to another. "The flowers were a little ... overkill, though. Barely enough room in the hospital for them. The nurses were freaking out. Would've left them there, but /Mom/--"
Leah tosses the card onto the table by the vase and rubs her hand over her face. "...Jesus." Caught in her thoughts; not listening. "I didn't think he'd actually do it."
Chris squints up. "This is your fault, somehow?" Witness the surprise. "Figures."
"Fuck off. Yeah, I guess so." Leah drops hands on lap and shoulders into bowed curve. Her head's high in pricked challenge, though. "Just a guy I had drinks with, okay? You got into it with him over a gun -- you and Lazzaro -- and he said he'd send you flowers." Her truculent gaze sweeps the nodding expanse of those flowers, and she snorts. "He's a rich idiot, so this must be his. Raymond Hubbard. Ring a bell?"
"Nope. You got any idea how many people I've gotten into it over a gun? Beston alone-- oh." Not Beston. Lazzaro. Chris's face goes blank, filtering through the internal rolodex of memory. "--Rich guy. Central Park. Cracker Jack gun. Yeah, that sounds right. Why's he sending me flowers? Christ. Is he gay?" An eye rolls at the flowers, mildly bemused.
Leah smiles. "Ask Emma Frost. He had dinner with her."
"Again with the Emma Frost." Bewilderment slides deeper into Chris's face, and over it, stencil-sharp, detective suspicion carves its shape. "That's the second time in as many days -- and then there's that guy Shaw, and.... weird shit."
Leah's mobile Italian face is eloquent enough on the subject of that guy Shaw that she doesn't -- won't -- actually speak to it, but leave it lying by the side of the conversational road like the dead raccoon it (and he) is. "What, she's coming up in your conversations now? Ray Hubbard and now the divine Ms. Frost ... oh, Rossi. You will be leaving us poor proles far behind as you move into these rarified social circles. Please remember us when you do. Send us cake, maybe. We like cake, we little people."
The cop grins briefly, showing his teeth. "Bite me," he invites with cordial crudity, offering a finger to go with it. "Damn. Well, wouldn't be the first time I get flowers from a gay guy, but -- Christ. Lazzaro'll love this. Wonder if he got some?" Straight or no, competition burns high in Rossi.
"Some flowers," Leah asks on her sway to her feet, "or some gay man?"
Chris's grin waxes hotter. "Either. Or. I don't care. You can have the gay guy. And the flowers."
Leah goes back to her akimbo stance, and her expression shades to regret. "Chris. Do not flash me the sexy smile if you can't follow through on it -- and you /are/ still recuperating, so." So she sniffs and then eases into, "He's not gay. Doesn't set off the little bell that way. He's just ... tidy. Composed. Thoughtful. He made his driver take me home, all the way from downtown. He's a decent guy. A racist redneck who spouts off without actually /doing/ anything, but..." She shrugs off the mantle of prickly bitterness. "Not a /bad/ guy."
Chris points out, illogically, "Man sent me, like, a thousand daisies. If that's not gay, I don't know what is. You should've seen his gun, Canto. It was all pretty and shiny, like he bought it out of fucking Vogue."
Leah laughs at that. "Oh, come on. He's a rich kid. The hell does he know about guns? He's not /gay/ for it. Just -- a little dumb. A little. Good intentions; no follow-through."
"That's half of New York City you're talking about there," points out Chris, knitting both hands across his stomach so he can slouch further still into the couch. The barest pang of discomfort shatters behind his eyes' hood, and he amends, "--except the rich part."
"Well, true, but it's just daisies. They're pretty." Leah's fingers trail over the nearest grazing flock on her way back to the couch. She refrains from flopping -- settles in slowly and gingerly. Pats his leg. "And they cheer the place up, admit it. An oil tycoon with a pretty gun sent you pretty flowers. You are loved, Christopher Rossi. You are /loved./"
"You never told me /why/ he sent me the flowers." Rossi eyes the patted leg with deep skepticism, and coasts his gaze past it to the crafty table and its burden.
Leah comments, "Might be because I don't remember. I was busy working on getting plastered at the time. Sorry."
Rossi blinks solemnly at Leah. "You sleep with him?" Inquiring minds.
Leah rolls her eyes at Rossi. "No." Bored minds.
"Rich guy," reminds Rossi, blithely mercenary. "Trophy wife could be your calling, Canto. Melcross wasn't interested."
"/She/ got a diamond bracelet from Tiffany's," says the woman scorned, though she sounds more mournful than anything else. Poor Leah. "Me, he buys beers for. I'm a drinking buddy. You don't marry your drinking buddy, not unless she's the last possible choice. And anyway--" she bumps her knee against his: listen up, bunky "--I had my chance at trophy-dom. That's what Gabe wanted out of me."
Reminds the affectionate younger brother, "Gabe's poor. Relatively speaking. Anyway, asshole didn't even buy me a card." And now Chris is keeping score. His head shifts against the sofa, searching for better comfort than that offered by the seat's back; black hair, already rumpled, zig-zags on static charge into a hedgehog halo around his skull. Poof. "Go for the gay guy with the gun."
Leah grants, "I would've been a working trophy wife, but he definitely wanted to display me. And mold me. Make me a good little woman in the kitchen and the bedroom. Asshole." She wiggles around to peer at him. "Are you /trying/ to set me up with this guy?"
A green eye slivers at Leah, shiny and perfect. "You are a /bad/ little woman in the bedroom," opines Chris, comfortably. "And pretty damn good in the kitchen. Dunno. Nah. Maybe. Isn't that the way it's supposed to work? Boy meets girl, boy marries girl, boy and girl make more boys and girls? How'd you meet him, anyway?"
"Car wreck," is Leah's pithy summary. "Met Sabby the same way. Same wreck, even. Helluva city."
"D'you meet Emma Frost and Sebastian Shaw that way, too?"
"Haven't met either, thanks. I don't travel in those circles, you do, remember? You and Sabby."
"You're the one having drinks with rich guys," Rossi notes, closing his eyes to their purple, tranquil stain. "I'm just having drinks with ... well, with Lazzaro and Summers. And then things explode. That'll teach me."
Leah murmurs, "Poor Scott," then shakes her head, rumpling her hair into its own staticky protest against the couch back. "Well, Sabby has us both beat because she's fucking rich guys. Nothing's exploding, though. You win, there. Vincent's doing okay, right? Haven't seen him."
Chris twitches in his seat, couching his chin on his chest. Contorted through the odd angle, his voice emerges hollow and flat. "Yeah. Julia thinks he's ... cute."
"Oh, God." Leah's hand cages the chortle working its way out of her mouth. "He's dead meat now. Isn't he? The next tally mark on her bedpost..."
Julia's older brother cracks open an eye. "Canto, do you mind?" Protesting anguish. "I don't need to hear that. Among other things."
"Sorry. Sorry. I forgot." Leah pats his arm. Down, boy. "Won't say another word. My delicate little flower. The daisies do suit you. I'll set you and Ray up for drinks."
Retaliation is swift and immediate. Chris hooks Leah's arm and reels her in for a firm kiss, followed up by a growling, "Flower, my /ass/. --Ow. Shit."
Leah's free arm plunges down between them to prop her away from him. It's awkward. Knees and elbows. But a smile, too. "Gonna kill yourself at this rate," she tells him softly and kisses back. "--Recuperating, aren't you? Did you tweak it?"
"It's fine," Chris asserts, moodily pressing at the bandaged chest with the heel of a palm. "No sex, no drugs, no rock and roll -- feel like I'm in Catholic school again, except /without/ all the stuff that made it fun."
Leah sits down, anyway -- on his lap, granted, but it /is/ sitting. Good girl, indeed. She studies him from there, all furrowed brows and flickering dead-leaf eyes beneath them. "I think I should've gone to your school, then," she decides. "We had no fun. None. The sisters saw to that, count that."
Somewhere behind the mask of eyes, a boyish smile creeps out of hiding and dons its cap of mischief. "Where there's a will," Chris begins, and: "Ow. Had some good times back in the day. Should look some of my old classmates up, since I'm out of commission for a while." An absent-minded hand warms Leah's thigh, idly massaging; the other, refreshed on the sofa's back, steeples the hollow of temple.
Leah brushes at his staticky hair, then rubs a thumb over his brow: amused absolution. "Sure, why not? I'm not promising to come over and clean up after them, though."
"Probably be depressing," opines Chris, forehead furrowing under the path of Leah's thumb. The long gaze goes blank, casting back over the haze of years. "Seeing some of those guys again -- maybe better not. Christ. I got all this leisure time and got no idea what to do with any of it. Know what I'd do if I had a /choice/, but doctor's orders--"
Leah slides down to kiss him again -- her choice, too -- and then slides off to rest on his other side, with her legs still crooked over his lap and under that massaging touch. Tucking folded arms behind her head, she gets comfortable and tells him, "Call them. Or someone. Hell, call Vincent. He's down a floor, right? You guys can hang out and play video games." Her grin gleams feminine innocence. "Whatever it is you guys do when you're alone. Smoke, drink beer, scratch yourselves."
Eyes roll, focusing for that image. "Lazzaro'd probably kick my ass at video games. He and Mikey could bond over that." Only the barest tickle of competitive spirit rouses for the admission; Chris has his limits, it seems. A twitch of distress deepens the background web of pain behind the face, briefly deepening shadows around his mouth, and Rossi stirs with: "I'll call him over tomorrow to help eat that Italian Melcross brought."
"And you can talk about Melcross," Leah presumes, watching his face with more attention than her drifting alto allows. "Give him some of my soup, too. Does he have folks to bring things over for him? Poor Vincent."
And there, again: guilt, however fleeting. "Don't think so. Julia took him some beer the other day, I think. Shit." Chris shifts again, uneasy for both thoughts. "Mind sharing your soup with him? Mikey can go over there with some later."
Leah assures him, "Not at all. Plenty more where it came from, since I didn't know when I was shopping how long you'd be laid up." She unfolds her arms to prod his side with a chary finger. "Fatten you up, man. Fat and happy Rossi, cosseted by all his peeps."
Chris twitches away. "Shit. Stop that." Ticklish. One hand snaps to catch that intrusive hand, pinning the arm behind her back. Two more steps to the handcuffs.
After an instinctive squawk of protest, Leah wiggles experimentally against the hold, as much testing its extent as taunting her body against his. And she lowers a brilliant eye over her shoulder at him. "Oh, /this/ doesn't hurt you? You must be feeling better already, my daisy."
"/Stop/ that." The taunting, the wiggling -- Chris glowers at Leah and, for good measure, captures her other arm to wind it behind her in company with the first. In spite of weakness, domination; natural superiority of strength and training. Not to mention other things. Temper. Libido. "Canto, Christ. Have a heart. I'm not supposed to--"
"--Have a heart attack. I know." Leah wilts against him in a swoon rich with nigh-Victorian grief. Again with the fluttering lashes. And a grin. "Not that you're helping your own cause, here, Daisy. Be a helluva way to go, though, huh? Admit it."
An eyebrow arches, mocking and sardonic. "Like a ricochet from my own fucking gun isn't? --Sorry. Lazzaro's. Precinct would've giggled through my funeral." Chris loosens his grip on Leah's hands, a watchful eye alert for new assaults. "Stop calling me Daisy."
Leah's laughter moves through her shoulder into his chest as she stays resting against him, though she does reclaim her hands, thankyouverymuch. Studies them for signs of police brutality, in fact. "Fine. /Detective/ Daisy. You people and your shields--"
A broad hand closes over Leah's mouth, muzzling. There. Chris tips his head back onto the sofa's pillow and closes his eyes, face tranquil.
--Brutality! Leah snickers into the muzzle and tips her head into his shoulder. Quiet, then. They can do that. She can do that.
[Log ends.]