2/10/07 - Matt
---
PD outnumber FD tonight, in this nameless little bar with dim lights, pool tables, and plentiful amounts of beer. The FDNY are attempting to make up for this in terms of volume levels and volumes of beer put away. Ostensibly, the very last rookie from the previous entrance exams has been assigned to the local firehouse. Ostensibly, the young man is being loudly cheered as being the worst of the best. Practically, it's a good excuse to eat, drink, and kill off a few braincells, all in the company of their fellow men. Matt Kessler, far from his own haunts, but dragged along by a buddy, is wading over to the bar to gather up a fresh round of drinks, cropped blond head bare and one hand scrubbing at it as he weaves his way through and finds a spot to elbow into the bar. "Yo," he calls out, hopeful.
"Watch it," a Brooklyn-accented baritone orders, more from caution than from annoyance. Broad, leather-clad shoulders turn, bumped through Newton's Laws: A to B, thus B to A. Beer splashes across scarred fingers; green eyes turn up, frowning through the too-bright glitter of an hour spent wisely and well. "There're people drinking he-- fuck. Kessler?"
"Yeah, two pints Sam Adams, pitcher of Miller, and a Newkie Brown for the pansy-ass over there--" Matt, oblivious to jostling at first, leans on the bar and gestures elabourately to indicate the grouping of firefighters, all still in their blues, busy arguing over the asskicking merits of one of the rare and legendary female members of the boys' club that is FDNY. "Oh." A sign is interpreted. "And nachos-- shit. Rossi?" he answers in turn, squinting down at the seated cop in puzzlement. "We were just talking about your sister."
Rossi's elbows are planted firmly on the bar, shoulders and back bowed protectively over the almost untouched drink. His stretch for a napkin is haphazard, at best; beside him, his partner uncurls to supply the necessary wipes, long-jowled face warming into brief recognition for Matt's benefit. "Things I don't need to hear, man," the younger of the two detectives says over his arm. "Who my sister's sleeping with, and what she's like in bed. You're definitely not a neighborhood boy. Who the fuck starts out a conversation with a guy with /that/ line?"
"Man, we weren't talking about -that-." Matt snorts. "Gimme some credit as an older brother here. Naw, she apparently showed up to an alarm on her bike last week, like Ghostrider with boobs. And not on fire. If you believe the boys over there," he jerks a thumb towards the knot of firemen at the bar. "Y'ask me, they're messing with the rookie, since he got all googly-eyed and red in the face over the idea that he might meet -girls- 'cause of the uniform." There's a long sigh, Matt a little red about the face himself, basking in alcohol's comforting glow. "'Lo, Beston," he greets. "But seriously, you wouldn't believe the kid. There's gullible, and there's him. His crew pulled the whole fake-confessional trick on him, earlier."
"Fake-confessional?" Rossi glances over his shoulder at the crowd, his mouth twitching at recognition of old school hazing. "We have a few new rookies coming in soon. Grab a seat," he adds amiably, straightening a little to unravel the tight knit of body. Around the obstruction of his head, Beston nods in agreeable welcome before returning to conversation on his other side. "Haven't seen you around in a while. How're things going?"
"Rig up a sheet, sit your most venerable-sounding guy behind it," Matt supplies, companionable and content to take a seat. "Put one of the Adams right here," he changes the order given the bartender. Resigned to the changeable minds of those with not enough blood in their alcohol stream, the bartender flicks a jaded eyebrow and nods. "Story goes, you see enough shit in this line of work, you find God. There's weekly confession as a result, we want you to take part." There's a pause then, as this story of a mild version of what used to go on in older, less-civilized days turns up a vein of more troubling thoughts. A shake of his head banishes it, and the thought is further chased with a shrug of one shoulder. "Go as much as they ever do. Arson's on a downturn, heater fires on the up, same old, same old. My kid brother gave your cousin the plague."
There's a small pause while Rossi works his way through the reply, thick brows twitching together to dig a frown between them. "Which cousin?" he asks at last, losing half the question in a swallow of beer. "Louis, Sal, Ri-- hey. You know Nat, right? You talking about cousin Nat?" His sideways glance quizzes, the glass of beer pausing on his lower lip.
"That's the one." Matt confirms. "Grad student or something, smart. Makes me twitchy as a cat on crack to hang around long," he reflects, for in fermento veritas, as much as in vino. "Always feel a half-step from saying the wrong thing, but we keep running into each other, so eh," A shrug throws things to the whims of fate and coincidence demons. "City's too fucking small, sometimes. Anyways, fed her leek soup, the the kid brother coughed on her. Fucking sign." A toast of the recently-arrived beer in front of him is given to the ineffable.
"For her," Chris suggests, his mouth twisting towards a half-skewed grin at the thought of the stricken Natalie. "Teach her to stay away from your type. Nothing but trouble, you adrenaline junkies in the FD. Haven't seen her in a while. I'm with you on the city being too fucking small, though," he adds, replacing his beer on its coaster to skip a frown back across the bar. "Hey. I come across as the -- I don't know. Paternal type?"
"Shit, I'm not dating your cousin." Matt looks vaguely horrified. "Christ... I mean, no offence to your family, Rossi, but... damn." Shoulders shaken again, like a retriever freshly bounded forth from a muddy pond, he nurses his beer and then shoots the older man an odd look. "You want kids or something, Rossi?"
Chris looks startled at the first statement; by the time the second one has ended, he looks quite frankly appalled. "You and Nat? Pigs'd fly first. You and Julia at least I can understand, but /Nat/? Christ, man. Give me some credit for not being a complete idiot." He takes refuge in his beer again, tossing back half the glass before emerging long enough to add, moody, "Someday, maybe. Shit. Maybe I mean -- hell do I know."
"Julia scares me shitless," Matt is man enough to admit, a crooked smile and a snort emerging together. "Force of nature, man," he qualifies uncessarily to one who has witnessed the elemental power of Julia Rossi all his life. His own glass left weakened and drained, he sets it down on a coaster the better to spin it around and vortex the remaining amber liquid. "So what the hell are you talking about, paternal type, if it's not anklebiters?"
"Girls are getting younger every fucking day," Chris says, apropos nothing in particular, and glances askance at a pair of women busily chatting up a young man in NYPD-emblazoned civilian attire. "I think I got a case of old age. Swear to God every time I sit in public, I'm running into kids wanting to dump their problems in my lap. Am I still wearing that fucking priest's collar and did someone just forget to tell me?"
Matt squints appraisingly at Rossi's neck, and shakes his head, before following his glance to the women, and then wandering away to look at the bar in general. The rookie, fortified with ample amounts of beer by his FDNY handlers, has gotten to his feet and is angling sloppily towards the pair, puffed and proud and probably trying to complete a dare. "Could be that whole detective thing," he opines. "You forget to switch the 'I'm listening' off when you peel outta the station for the day?"
Chris's gaze cuts back over the jut of his upper arm, tracking the progress of the fresh-faced rookie. "Damned if I know if I ever turn it off. Or on," he supposes, straightening again to toss off the last of his drink. The bartender's return supplies a fresh glass and a fresh supply; he closes one hand around the base and fists his chin with the other. "Why? You got some urge to confess something to my listening ear, Kessler?"
"Forgive me, Father Rossi, I've never been a Catholic?" Matt questions in return, a snort riffling the surface of his beer as he lifts, drinks, and drains before answering. "Naw. Just theorizing as to why you might be attracting kids wanting guidance."
"Father Rossi," Chris says, and there's mockery twined in with the name. He scratches idly at his cheek, blunt nails hissing against stubble, and considers Matt's profile with a thoughtful squint. "Go figure. So if you're not dating Nat or Julia -- and before you say anything, I know Julia doesn't have relationships like normal women -- allow me first to thank you for leaving my family gene pool pure, and then ask what's up with your love life?"
"You're just afraid the next generation of Rossis might be taller than you," Matt theorizes, kindly leaving casual ethnic slurs out of the evening's repertoire. To the question actually posed, he doesn't answer immediately, features slackening and eyes flashing pain once, before he turns away and calls a strident "'Nother beer down here?" before a mutter of "The hell fucking question's that?" follows on its heels. "You turning into one of those googly-eyed folks who want everyone dating 'cause they are?" Another pause, a beat too long, and the man finds his stride again, the moment passed. "'Course, if everyone had their own personal... poodle, was it, that you called 'em?"
Chris grins fleetingly, and if there is a trace of old pain edging that twist of mouth, well. "Poodle," he says, and lifts his new glass in a soundless toast to the same. "Wouldn't call it personal, but -- you met Cadbury? -- she is hot. Worse things in life to be dating someone that hot and that smart. Life goes on, man." Cynicism bleeds off the last, dissipating into silence.
The pain is noticed. It isn't remarked upon. They are, after all, men, in a bar. Matt toasts as well, and contents himself with correcting that "Only seen her on TV, but what I saw was grade A. What the hell's she see in -you-?" Crooked smirk flashing out again, it fades into absent-minded focus as the rookie attempts to apparently steal the female attention from his counterpart in the NYPD. "Christ... this should be good."
"I make her laugh," Chris supposes, the slant of his mouth relaxing into a brief moment of nostalgia directed elsewhere. "Hell do I know. Maybe she figures as long as she has to save my ass all the time, she might as well get the side benefits. Means she's usually on scene when things go wrong. Not that they've gone wrong lately," he amends, a frown -- roused paranoia -- suddenly shadowing his face.
"Don't go thinking they're overdue to go wrong." Matt knows that shadow and knows that paranoia, and wags a drunkenly solemn finger at the detective. "S'usually when they do. Shit happens. No sense taking a laxative."
Chris catches the first exhalation of a laugh in a hand, stopping it almost before it is begun. "Great," he says dryly. "I'll remember that. Inspirational word of the day from our buddies at the FDNY. If a building falls down on my head or my girlfriend throws a car at my head, I'll enjoy the 'told you so.'"
"-Can- she throw cars?" Sudden interest. Lieutenant Matt Kessler, FDNY, was once a small boy, after all.
"Damned if I know." Chris's fingers catch over his mouth, rubbing idly across the shadow on his cheek. "I should ask. You get a wind strong enough -- tornados throw cars, right?"
"Man." Matt considers this information in an awed silence, sittng up and sitting back with an expression equal parts bemused and amused. "You better not forget Valentine's Day, bro."
Chris's fleeting smile fades away; the cop's face is briefly stark. "Valentine's Day," he says, and recovers on the next breath. "I got an arrangement with a flower shop. Planning ahead is the name of the game. Otherwise, a case comes up, you're on shift, and suddenly it's midnight and you're fucked."
"Or -not- fucked."
"Either or." Chris looks thoughtful, and studies the scars that stitch across his knuckles. "Screwed either way."
"Or not--" But Matt shakes his head and aborts the quip before it can be born into the monstrous form of an even more tired joke. Studying his beer pensively, he muses that "I can't think of a shittier holiday, really. Nobody gets out alive." Privately in public, his lips quirk in wry memory.
"Someone makes a shitload of money," Chris suggests, and tips his glass again to pause just short of a sip. "Women bought into it. Like the damn diamond rings for engagements. That sort of shit. Peace at home, goodwill to all -- and a few billion in profits to someone not us."
Matt has beer. Matt has too much beer in his glass, and not yet enough in himself. He corrects this problem with the grave focus of someone who's been steadily overcoming their tolerance all evening. "Y'fool yourself into thinking it's a good time when you've got someone, because then you got someone, and the day's just an excuse to celebrate," he philosophies. For Matt has beer.
Chris has beer. Chris has too much beer in him, and not enough in his glass. "Goddammit," he realizes, head lifting, arrested, like a dog catching a scent. "I'm working on Valentine's. Fuck. I didn't think -- it didn't occur to me I'd be hooked up this time of year, last year. Shit."
"Lightning bolt?" Not unsympathetic, Matt can't -quite- lose the air of curiosity that underpins his tone, and temporarily derails his moping.
"What?" Chris glances askance at Matt, and taps the counter for the bartender's attention again. The next order is for whiskey. Detective First Grade Rossi is trading up. "I'll have to trade shifts with someone. Last year, Leah'd just got offed around this time of year."
"Christ..." Matt mutters, with a blind shake of his head. "If there was a shittier time... hit me with one of those too," he requests, with a lift of one hand and a tip of his head, for no man should drink whiskey alone. The beer remaining in his glass is gulped, and he rests his head briefly in one hand, waiting for the whirl to settle.
The bartender inspects Matt with a professional eye, gauging his tolerence before shrugging philosophically. His is not to wonder why, with the hard-drinking men and women of the city's emergency services. Whiskey slides down the counter to both men. "This is going to be depressing," Chris says with mordant cheer, and scrubs a hand across his face. "Would you believe it's been a fucking year?"
Matt toasts the bartender in grim gratitude, smile thin and black as it turns itself to Rossi. "Yeah," he says. "I would." Slim and spectral, Sabby joins Leah to float above the bar, mirrored in Matt's eyes as he stares at the collection of bottles. "Does... shit, I can't call the woman 'Cadbury'. She know?"
"Munroe," Chris provides, and looks through the prism of his whiskey at the back of the bar. "Know what? About Leah?"
"Yeah," Matt does not consider his whiskey so much as his fingers cuddle the shot, wrapping around the cool and solid glass like an odd-shaped teddybear.
"The poodles were guarding her. From Magneto, if you believe that."
"You're shitting me." Matt's tone is flat, for all there's no real disbelief in his face. "Guess I can see that, with how her politics were leaned, professional-wise. But... damn. Irony, there. Guess it spares you having to explain, though."
"Lucky me." Chris toasts to that, abruptly sober. "Here's to our women, Kessler. May the angels do better for them than we did."
One big hand pinches fingers against the narrow bridge of his nose, one blond head bows to hide the cracks in an expression that can't hold saturnine together. Matt nods silently, blindly, and raises his glass as well. "For her sake, I'll believe in a god to save their souls." Hoarse, but staving off broken, he offers a cap to the toast, looks up, and with a nod, he drinks.
Chris's whiskey is gone, and he looks blankly into the empty glass, rolling it between his fingertips before allowing it to drop with a clatter. "Your rookie over there better believe in a good doctor or a wingman," he says with a fair resumption of his normal self, "or he'd better be the type who uses a condom. That groupie's been through most of the one-six."
Matt, younger, less battered by life's currents and the piles of dead and dying that grasp at the coattails of one of Homicide's knights, is not quite as quick to resume the normal patterns and patois of the City's finest and bravest in company of alcohol. "Christ," he blasphemes with a snort. "Sharing's caring, but I'll drop a word in the ear of his keepers."
"Safety begins at home," Chris says, and taps the counter for a refill. His tongue blurs the consonants and the vowels of the words, smearing them together into a lazy Brooklyn wash. Alcohol and old shadows burn too bright in his eyes. "You going to that Valentine's Day bash thing they throw every year?" he asks. "The one at Taggarty's for your precinct."
"Actually," Matt offers, with a sheepish smirk. "I got an invite to an anti-Valentines Day party from another woman I keep bumping into everywhere. Sounds interesting."
admits, not offers. LATE. BRAIN NOT WORK.
Eyebrows lift. Chris looks bemused, then amused. "Getting drunk, getting hooked up, getting laid?" he suggests. "Black crepe instead of red, and dead birds instead of fat babies with bows and arrows?"
"Dunno about the drunk or laid -- she doesn't seem the type." Stacking the shot glass neatly inside the emptied mug of beer before him, Matt then covers it with a coaster and looks around for more things to play with. "But yeah, black and gothic, says the kid brother. He's got ideas about sticking me in some period costume Victorian shit. I say him and what army."
"That's the ticket," Chris encourages, watching while the bartender pours another two fingers of whiskey. "You can take him. You're a fucking Lieutenant in the fucking FDNY. You'd look like a putz in black eyeliner and fishnet stockings." He catches Matt's glance and reaches to skid the peanut bowl toward his companion. "So who's this chick?"
The peanuts are seized upon with a potent fraction of the avarice of the average Central Park squirrel, and Matt promptly shells a few, adding the husks to the abstract sculpture growing before him on the bar top "Keep running into her," he reiterates. "Small fucking City strikes again. But her last name's Elliott, she's in computers, and she's got a big ol' Doberman named Schroedinger. Perky as hell," he adds on. "Cross between a teenaged girl and a kindergarten teacher."
Chris cuts a sigh off behind a hand, and claims a few of the peanuts for himself. The shells thwart him. He frowns a bit hazily at one and scissors it between his knuckles, opening it with a little crack. "Jesus. Save me from perky women. Next one who chirps at me gets thrown in the Hole for -- damned if I know. Something. I'll find something. Then again, perky's your type, isn't it?"
Matt snorts. "My -type-?" Matt echoes. "God... energetic, sure, but -perky-? You never saw her in the early mornings," he decides, mellowed enough by whiskey and beer that the memory comes untouched by pain.
"Perky," Chris says firmly. "Chirping. Like a fucking canary, and every woman's off when she first gets up. There's no way to tell what she's really like when she's fresh out of bed."
"You got some strangely skewed ideas of perky." Matt shakes his head, and goes to add anothe rpeanut to his sculpture, only to find it whisked away and dismantled by efficient bar staff. Looking momentarily crestfallen, he soon sets about establishing opposing battlefronts of peanuts. The casualties of war are eaten. "Although I guess if she had stuff to chirp about behind my back, I was doing -something- right."
"--Even if it's fresh out of /your/ bed," Chris thinks to finish, and then winces a little unevenly and takes refuge behind a hand. "Fuck, man, I wish you hadn't slept with my sister. I can't even /look/ at you, dammit. --I need more whiskey. Or...." Not. The emptied glass slips from his fingers, colliding with the empty one to roll drunkenly (hah) towards Matt. "She seemed pretty happy to me."
"I was," Matt proclaims with a certain amount of dignity, "Not -talking- about your sister." Too blue collar for an upper crust sniff, he instead favours Rossi with a severe look. And then snickers.
"And /I/ was talking about Melcross," Chris returns with a matching dignity, somewhat ruined by his grope after the escaped glass. His gesture summons the bartender again. One more. "Don't talk about my sister. I haven't had enough to drink. Shit. There isn't enough alcohol in the /bar/."
"Then quit bringing your sister up, dumbshit," is Matt's oh-so-helpful counsel, delivered with another snicker.
"You started it," Chris accuses, and glares.
"So stop finishing it," Matt fences back, before the snickers intensify, and he bows towards the bar, one hand pressed against it in the midst of the peanut reenactment of a Civil War battleground. After a pause for control, and the glass of ice water set firmly before him by the bartender, "How 'bout that local sports team?" quoth the Matt.
Chris says blackly, "I'll be damned if I'm talking sports tonight," and frowns at Matt's water before taking careful hold of his newest glass. "What time is it? I was supposed to make sure Tucci got home before midnight."
"Shit... hang on." Matt's watch, buried beneath cloth, takes a moment to excavate, and a moment more to squint at, angle into the dim bar lighting, and then squint at some more. "Fucking IndiGlo button's sized for a fucking midget's fingers -- 20 after twelve."
"Oh," Chris says, faithful backup that he is. "Oops." And he tosses back his whiskey with no respect for its quality before turning on the stool to scan the bar. "Did he-- you see him around?"
"I saw a guy as looked like him headed out back to puke, 'cause the washroom line's too long and someone's fucking someone in the ladies." Helpfully, Matt jerks a thumb in the direction of the door to the back alley. "Good luck surviving the 14th, man."
"Jesus Christ." Chris slides off the stool -- it is a short trip down -- and stands with a respectable sham of sobriety. "Luck to you too, man. Good to see you," he adds, offering an open hand for a handshake of the manly kind. "You ever get your ass out of Harlem, you should come up and visit the one-nine sometime. See how real grown-ups protect and serve."
"Sure, and you ever get bored with walking the mutant beat, tag along with the Fire Factory and we'll dangle you off a roof." Promise made, hand taken and shaken with a clasp just a little sticky from spilled beer, Lieutenant Kessler awards Detective Rossi a nod, and then allows him his leave. Water glass in hand, Matt rises once Rossi has gone. A lost lamb of his own brother flock needs tending, or at least a condom or two distributed to the rookie before the couple in the bathroom act as an irresistable suggestion.
PD outnumber FD tonight, in this nameless little bar with dim lights, pool tables, and plentiful amounts of beer. The FDNY are attempting to make up for this in terms of volume levels and volumes of beer put away. Ostensibly, the very last rookie from the previous entrance exams has been assigned to the local firehouse. Ostensibly, the young man is being loudly cheered as being the worst of the best. Practically, it's a good excuse to eat, drink, and kill off a few braincells, all in the company of their fellow men. Matt Kessler, far from his own haunts, but dragged along by a buddy, is wading over to the bar to gather up a fresh round of drinks, cropped blond head bare and one hand scrubbing at it as he weaves his way through and finds a spot to elbow into the bar. "Yo," he calls out, hopeful.
"Watch it," a Brooklyn-accented baritone orders, more from caution than from annoyance. Broad, leather-clad shoulders turn, bumped through Newton's Laws: A to B, thus B to A. Beer splashes across scarred fingers; green eyes turn up, frowning through the too-bright glitter of an hour spent wisely and well. "There're people drinking he-- fuck. Kessler?"
"Yeah, two pints Sam Adams, pitcher of Miller, and a Newkie Brown for the pansy-ass over there--" Matt, oblivious to jostling at first, leans on the bar and gestures elabourately to indicate the grouping of firefighters, all still in their blues, busy arguing over the asskicking merits of one of the rare and legendary female members of the boys' club that is FDNY. "Oh." A sign is interpreted. "And nachos-- shit. Rossi?" he answers in turn, squinting down at the seated cop in puzzlement. "We were just talking about your sister."
Rossi's elbows are planted firmly on the bar, shoulders and back bowed protectively over the almost untouched drink. His stretch for a napkin is haphazard, at best; beside him, his partner uncurls to supply the necessary wipes, long-jowled face warming into brief recognition for Matt's benefit. "Things I don't need to hear, man," the younger of the two detectives says over his arm. "Who my sister's sleeping with, and what she's like in bed. You're definitely not a neighborhood boy. Who the fuck starts out a conversation with a guy with /that/ line?"
"Man, we weren't talking about -that-." Matt snorts. "Gimme some credit as an older brother here. Naw, she apparently showed up to an alarm on her bike last week, like Ghostrider with boobs. And not on fire. If you believe the boys over there," he jerks a thumb towards the knot of firemen at the bar. "Y'ask me, they're messing with the rookie, since he got all googly-eyed and red in the face over the idea that he might meet -girls- 'cause of the uniform." There's a long sigh, Matt a little red about the face himself, basking in alcohol's comforting glow. "'Lo, Beston," he greets. "But seriously, you wouldn't believe the kid. There's gullible, and there's him. His crew pulled the whole fake-confessional trick on him, earlier."
"Fake-confessional?" Rossi glances over his shoulder at the crowd, his mouth twitching at recognition of old school hazing. "We have a few new rookies coming in soon. Grab a seat," he adds amiably, straightening a little to unravel the tight knit of body. Around the obstruction of his head, Beston nods in agreeable welcome before returning to conversation on his other side. "Haven't seen you around in a while. How're things going?"
"Rig up a sheet, sit your most venerable-sounding guy behind it," Matt supplies, companionable and content to take a seat. "Put one of the Adams right here," he changes the order given the bartender. Resigned to the changeable minds of those with not enough blood in their alcohol stream, the bartender flicks a jaded eyebrow and nods. "Story goes, you see enough shit in this line of work, you find God. There's weekly confession as a result, we want you to take part." There's a pause then, as this story of a mild version of what used to go on in older, less-civilized days turns up a vein of more troubling thoughts. A shake of his head banishes it, and the thought is further chased with a shrug of one shoulder. "Go as much as they ever do. Arson's on a downturn, heater fires on the up, same old, same old. My kid brother gave your cousin the plague."
There's a small pause while Rossi works his way through the reply, thick brows twitching together to dig a frown between them. "Which cousin?" he asks at last, losing half the question in a swallow of beer. "Louis, Sal, Ri-- hey. You know Nat, right? You talking about cousin Nat?" His sideways glance quizzes, the glass of beer pausing on his lower lip.
"That's the one." Matt confirms. "Grad student or something, smart. Makes me twitchy as a cat on crack to hang around long," he reflects, for in fermento veritas, as much as in vino. "Always feel a half-step from saying the wrong thing, but we keep running into each other, so eh," A shrug throws things to the whims of fate and coincidence demons. "City's too fucking small, sometimes. Anyways, fed her leek soup, the the kid brother coughed on her. Fucking sign." A toast of the recently-arrived beer in front of him is given to the ineffable.
"For her," Chris suggests, his mouth twisting towards a half-skewed grin at the thought of the stricken Natalie. "Teach her to stay away from your type. Nothing but trouble, you adrenaline junkies in the FD. Haven't seen her in a while. I'm with you on the city being too fucking small, though," he adds, replacing his beer on its coaster to skip a frown back across the bar. "Hey. I come across as the -- I don't know. Paternal type?"
"Shit, I'm not dating your cousin." Matt looks vaguely horrified. "Christ... I mean, no offence to your family, Rossi, but... damn." Shoulders shaken again, like a retriever freshly bounded forth from a muddy pond, he nurses his beer and then shoots the older man an odd look. "You want kids or something, Rossi?"
Chris looks startled at the first statement; by the time the second one has ended, he looks quite frankly appalled. "You and Nat? Pigs'd fly first. You and Julia at least I can understand, but /Nat/? Christ, man. Give me some credit for not being a complete idiot." He takes refuge in his beer again, tossing back half the glass before emerging long enough to add, moody, "Someday, maybe. Shit. Maybe I mean -- hell do I know."
"Julia scares me shitless," Matt is man enough to admit, a crooked smile and a snort emerging together. "Force of nature, man," he qualifies uncessarily to one who has witnessed the elemental power of Julia Rossi all his life. His own glass left weakened and drained, he sets it down on a coaster the better to spin it around and vortex the remaining amber liquid. "So what the hell are you talking about, paternal type, if it's not anklebiters?"
"Girls are getting younger every fucking day," Chris says, apropos nothing in particular, and glances askance at a pair of women busily chatting up a young man in NYPD-emblazoned civilian attire. "I think I got a case of old age. Swear to God every time I sit in public, I'm running into kids wanting to dump their problems in my lap. Am I still wearing that fucking priest's collar and did someone just forget to tell me?"
Matt squints appraisingly at Rossi's neck, and shakes his head, before following his glance to the women, and then wandering away to look at the bar in general. The rookie, fortified with ample amounts of beer by his FDNY handlers, has gotten to his feet and is angling sloppily towards the pair, puffed and proud and probably trying to complete a dare. "Could be that whole detective thing," he opines. "You forget to switch the 'I'm listening' off when you peel outta the station for the day?"
Chris's gaze cuts back over the jut of his upper arm, tracking the progress of the fresh-faced rookie. "Damned if I know if I ever turn it off. Or on," he supposes, straightening again to toss off the last of his drink. The bartender's return supplies a fresh glass and a fresh supply; he closes one hand around the base and fists his chin with the other. "Why? You got some urge to confess something to my listening ear, Kessler?"
"Forgive me, Father Rossi, I've never been a Catholic?" Matt questions in return, a snort riffling the surface of his beer as he lifts, drinks, and drains before answering. "Naw. Just theorizing as to why you might be attracting kids wanting guidance."
"Father Rossi," Chris says, and there's mockery twined in with the name. He scratches idly at his cheek, blunt nails hissing against stubble, and considers Matt's profile with a thoughtful squint. "Go figure. So if you're not dating Nat or Julia -- and before you say anything, I know Julia doesn't have relationships like normal women -- allow me first to thank you for leaving my family gene pool pure, and then ask what's up with your love life?"
"You're just afraid the next generation of Rossis might be taller than you," Matt theorizes, kindly leaving casual ethnic slurs out of the evening's repertoire. To the question actually posed, he doesn't answer immediately, features slackening and eyes flashing pain once, before he turns away and calls a strident "'Nother beer down here?" before a mutter of "The hell fucking question's that?" follows on its heels. "You turning into one of those googly-eyed folks who want everyone dating 'cause they are?" Another pause, a beat too long, and the man finds his stride again, the moment passed. "'Course, if everyone had their own personal... poodle, was it, that you called 'em?"
Chris grins fleetingly, and if there is a trace of old pain edging that twist of mouth, well. "Poodle," he says, and lifts his new glass in a soundless toast to the same. "Wouldn't call it personal, but -- you met Cadbury? -- she is hot. Worse things in life to be dating someone that hot and that smart. Life goes on, man." Cynicism bleeds off the last, dissipating into silence.
The pain is noticed. It isn't remarked upon. They are, after all, men, in a bar. Matt toasts as well, and contents himself with correcting that "Only seen her on TV, but what I saw was grade A. What the hell's she see in -you-?" Crooked smirk flashing out again, it fades into absent-minded focus as the rookie attempts to apparently steal the female attention from his counterpart in the NYPD. "Christ... this should be good."
"I make her laugh," Chris supposes, the slant of his mouth relaxing into a brief moment of nostalgia directed elsewhere. "Hell do I know. Maybe she figures as long as she has to save my ass all the time, she might as well get the side benefits. Means she's usually on scene when things go wrong. Not that they've gone wrong lately," he amends, a frown -- roused paranoia -- suddenly shadowing his face.
"Don't go thinking they're overdue to go wrong." Matt knows that shadow and knows that paranoia, and wags a drunkenly solemn finger at the detective. "S'usually when they do. Shit happens. No sense taking a laxative."
Chris catches the first exhalation of a laugh in a hand, stopping it almost before it is begun. "Great," he says dryly. "I'll remember that. Inspirational word of the day from our buddies at the FDNY. If a building falls down on my head or my girlfriend throws a car at my head, I'll enjoy the 'told you so.'"
"-Can- she throw cars?" Sudden interest. Lieutenant Matt Kessler, FDNY, was once a small boy, after all.
"Damned if I know." Chris's fingers catch over his mouth, rubbing idly across the shadow on his cheek. "I should ask. You get a wind strong enough -- tornados throw cars, right?"
"Man." Matt considers this information in an awed silence, sittng up and sitting back with an expression equal parts bemused and amused. "You better not forget Valentine's Day, bro."
Chris's fleeting smile fades away; the cop's face is briefly stark. "Valentine's Day," he says, and recovers on the next breath. "I got an arrangement with a flower shop. Planning ahead is the name of the game. Otherwise, a case comes up, you're on shift, and suddenly it's midnight and you're fucked."
"Or -not- fucked."
"Either or." Chris looks thoughtful, and studies the scars that stitch across his knuckles. "Screwed either way."
"Or not--" But Matt shakes his head and aborts the quip before it can be born into the monstrous form of an even more tired joke. Studying his beer pensively, he muses that "I can't think of a shittier holiday, really. Nobody gets out alive." Privately in public, his lips quirk in wry memory.
"Someone makes a shitload of money," Chris suggests, and tips his glass again to pause just short of a sip. "Women bought into it. Like the damn diamond rings for engagements. That sort of shit. Peace at home, goodwill to all -- and a few billion in profits to someone not us."
Matt has beer. Matt has too much beer in his glass, and not yet enough in himself. He corrects this problem with the grave focus of someone who's been steadily overcoming their tolerance all evening. "Y'fool yourself into thinking it's a good time when you've got someone, because then you got someone, and the day's just an excuse to celebrate," he philosophies. For Matt has beer.
Chris has beer. Chris has too much beer in him, and not enough in his glass. "Goddammit," he realizes, head lifting, arrested, like a dog catching a scent. "I'm working on Valentine's. Fuck. I didn't think -- it didn't occur to me I'd be hooked up this time of year, last year. Shit."
"Lightning bolt?" Not unsympathetic, Matt can't -quite- lose the air of curiosity that underpins his tone, and temporarily derails his moping.
"What?" Chris glances askance at Matt, and taps the counter for the bartender's attention again. The next order is for whiskey. Detective First Grade Rossi is trading up. "I'll have to trade shifts with someone. Last year, Leah'd just got offed around this time of year."
"Christ..." Matt mutters, with a blind shake of his head. "If there was a shittier time... hit me with one of those too," he requests, with a lift of one hand and a tip of his head, for no man should drink whiskey alone. The beer remaining in his glass is gulped, and he rests his head briefly in one hand, waiting for the whirl to settle.
The bartender inspects Matt with a professional eye, gauging his tolerence before shrugging philosophically. His is not to wonder why, with the hard-drinking men and women of the city's emergency services. Whiskey slides down the counter to both men. "This is going to be depressing," Chris says with mordant cheer, and scrubs a hand across his face. "Would you believe it's been a fucking year?"
Matt toasts the bartender in grim gratitude, smile thin and black as it turns itself to Rossi. "Yeah," he says. "I would." Slim and spectral, Sabby joins Leah to float above the bar, mirrored in Matt's eyes as he stares at the collection of bottles. "Does... shit, I can't call the woman 'Cadbury'. She know?"
"Munroe," Chris provides, and looks through the prism of his whiskey at the back of the bar. "Know what? About Leah?"
"Yeah," Matt does not consider his whiskey so much as his fingers cuddle the shot, wrapping around the cool and solid glass like an odd-shaped teddybear.
"The poodles were guarding her. From Magneto, if you believe that."
"You're shitting me." Matt's tone is flat, for all there's no real disbelief in his face. "Guess I can see that, with how her politics were leaned, professional-wise. But... damn. Irony, there. Guess it spares you having to explain, though."
"Lucky me." Chris toasts to that, abruptly sober. "Here's to our women, Kessler. May the angels do better for them than we did."
One big hand pinches fingers against the narrow bridge of his nose, one blond head bows to hide the cracks in an expression that can't hold saturnine together. Matt nods silently, blindly, and raises his glass as well. "For her sake, I'll believe in a god to save their souls." Hoarse, but staving off broken, he offers a cap to the toast, looks up, and with a nod, he drinks.
Chris's whiskey is gone, and he looks blankly into the empty glass, rolling it between his fingertips before allowing it to drop with a clatter. "Your rookie over there better believe in a good doctor or a wingman," he says with a fair resumption of his normal self, "or he'd better be the type who uses a condom. That groupie's been through most of the one-six."
Matt, younger, less battered by life's currents and the piles of dead and dying that grasp at the coattails of one of Homicide's knights, is not quite as quick to resume the normal patterns and patois of the City's finest and bravest in company of alcohol. "Christ," he blasphemes with a snort. "Sharing's caring, but I'll drop a word in the ear of his keepers."
"Safety begins at home," Chris says, and taps the counter for a refill. His tongue blurs the consonants and the vowels of the words, smearing them together into a lazy Brooklyn wash. Alcohol and old shadows burn too bright in his eyes. "You going to that Valentine's Day bash thing they throw every year?" he asks. "The one at Taggarty's for your precinct."
"Actually," Matt offers, with a sheepish smirk. "I got an invite to an anti-Valentines Day party from another woman I keep bumping into everywhere. Sounds interesting."
admits, not offers. LATE. BRAIN NOT WORK.
Eyebrows lift. Chris looks bemused, then amused. "Getting drunk, getting hooked up, getting laid?" he suggests. "Black crepe instead of red, and dead birds instead of fat babies with bows and arrows?"
"Dunno about the drunk or laid -- she doesn't seem the type." Stacking the shot glass neatly inside the emptied mug of beer before him, Matt then covers it with a coaster and looks around for more things to play with. "But yeah, black and gothic, says the kid brother. He's got ideas about sticking me in some period costume Victorian shit. I say him and what army."
"That's the ticket," Chris encourages, watching while the bartender pours another two fingers of whiskey. "You can take him. You're a fucking Lieutenant in the fucking FDNY. You'd look like a putz in black eyeliner and fishnet stockings." He catches Matt's glance and reaches to skid the peanut bowl toward his companion. "So who's this chick?"
The peanuts are seized upon with a potent fraction of the avarice of the average Central Park squirrel, and Matt promptly shells a few, adding the husks to the abstract sculpture growing before him on the bar top "Keep running into her," he reiterates. "Small fucking City strikes again. But her last name's Elliott, she's in computers, and she's got a big ol' Doberman named Schroedinger. Perky as hell," he adds on. "Cross between a teenaged girl and a kindergarten teacher."
Chris cuts a sigh off behind a hand, and claims a few of the peanuts for himself. The shells thwart him. He frowns a bit hazily at one and scissors it between his knuckles, opening it with a little crack. "Jesus. Save me from perky women. Next one who chirps at me gets thrown in the Hole for -- damned if I know. Something. I'll find something. Then again, perky's your type, isn't it?"
Matt snorts. "My -type-?" Matt echoes. "God... energetic, sure, but -perky-? You never saw her in the early mornings," he decides, mellowed enough by whiskey and beer that the memory comes untouched by pain.
"Perky," Chris says firmly. "Chirping. Like a fucking canary, and every woman's off when she first gets up. There's no way to tell what she's really like when she's fresh out of bed."
"You got some strangely skewed ideas of perky." Matt shakes his head, and goes to add anothe rpeanut to his sculpture, only to find it whisked away and dismantled by efficient bar staff. Looking momentarily crestfallen, he soon sets about establishing opposing battlefronts of peanuts. The casualties of war are eaten. "Although I guess if she had stuff to chirp about behind my back, I was doing -something- right."
"--Even if it's fresh out of /your/ bed," Chris thinks to finish, and then winces a little unevenly and takes refuge behind a hand. "Fuck, man, I wish you hadn't slept with my sister. I can't even /look/ at you, dammit. --I need more whiskey. Or...." Not. The emptied glass slips from his fingers, colliding with the empty one to roll drunkenly (hah) towards Matt. "She seemed pretty happy to me."
"I was," Matt proclaims with a certain amount of dignity, "Not -talking- about your sister." Too blue collar for an upper crust sniff, he instead favours Rossi with a severe look. And then snickers.
"And /I/ was talking about Melcross," Chris returns with a matching dignity, somewhat ruined by his grope after the escaped glass. His gesture summons the bartender again. One more. "Don't talk about my sister. I haven't had enough to drink. Shit. There isn't enough alcohol in the /bar/."
"Then quit bringing your sister up, dumbshit," is Matt's oh-so-helpful counsel, delivered with another snicker.
"You started it," Chris accuses, and glares.
"So stop finishing it," Matt fences back, before the snickers intensify, and he bows towards the bar, one hand pressed against it in the midst of the peanut reenactment of a Civil War battleground. After a pause for control, and the glass of ice water set firmly before him by the bartender, "How 'bout that local sports team?" quoth the Matt.
Chris says blackly, "I'll be damned if I'm talking sports tonight," and frowns at Matt's water before taking careful hold of his newest glass. "What time is it? I was supposed to make sure Tucci got home before midnight."
"Shit... hang on." Matt's watch, buried beneath cloth, takes a moment to excavate, and a moment more to squint at, angle into the dim bar lighting, and then squint at some more. "Fucking IndiGlo button's sized for a fucking midget's fingers -- 20 after twelve."
"Oh," Chris says, faithful backup that he is. "Oops." And he tosses back his whiskey with no respect for its quality before turning on the stool to scan the bar. "Did he-- you see him around?"
"I saw a guy as looked like him headed out back to puke, 'cause the washroom line's too long and someone's fucking someone in the ladies." Helpfully, Matt jerks a thumb in the direction of the door to the back alley. "Good luck surviving the 14th, man."
"Jesus Christ." Chris slides off the stool -- it is a short trip down -- and stands with a respectable sham of sobriety. "Luck to you too, man. Good to see you," he adds, offering an open hand for a handshake of the manly kind. "You ever get your ass out of Harlem, you should come up and visit the one-nine sometime. See how real grown-ups protect and serve."
"Sure, and you ever get bored with walking the mutant beat, tag along with the Fire Factory and we'll dangle you off a roof." Promise made, hand taken and shaken with a clasp just a little sticky from spilled beer, Lieutenant Kessler awards Detective Rossi a nod, and then allows him his leave. Water glass in hand, Matt rises once Rossi has gone. A lost lamb of his own brother flock needs tending, or at least a condom or two distributed to the rookie before the couple in the bathroom act as an irresistable suggestion.