OOC: Friends commentary
LJ Entry: Friends, Lovers, Enemies
Date Posted: 11/20/2005
Players: Leah & Rossi
To date: Leah Canto, journalist, has been blackmailed by the Friends of Humanity in playing the part of their Sinn Fein, the acceptable propoganda arm for a terrorist organization. The price for her betrayal is the death of her family and friends, among them (implied) Det. Chris Rossi. Her secret employment by the Friends has led to a personal interview with Professor John Grey, while that helpless gentleman was temporarily held as a hostage for Jean's good behavior during the Purity rally. Chris, her neighbor, occasional lover, not to mention antagonistic and ungentlemanly friend, is only come belatedly into the realization that Leah has gone over to the dark side.
Sunday: God's day. In Chris Rossi parlance, a different matter altogether, fallen hard and fast from the Church's grace and bidding fair to plummet farther. Temper in abeyance, a newspaper's front page rolled for smiting purpose in a hand, he ambles up the hallway to Leah Canto's apartment, girded in righteous judgment and -- for modesty's sake -- jeans and a T-shirt. A fist knocks doom upon the door. Thump. Thump. "Police. Open up." Thump.
This was a confusing set for me. Sometimes it just takes a while for you to get into the swing of things, I suppose. A very Biblical set, to suit the sabbath. He's had time to lose his temper about this entire situation, then gain it again, then lose it again. He actually learned about Leah's interview of John after leaving Xavier School care, which was when he learned about John's kidnapping to begin with. The wrath of justice makes his summons official: Police, not Rossi. It's part joke, but part not, since there is an official aspect to this; he is preempting their inevitable summons of Leah to the station. Personal reasons. Damn those personal reasons.
Also, I think it really was nice of Rossi to put clothes on. Righteous judgment is all very well and good, but the wind chill kind of cuts through to the dangly bits during a New York winter.
...Thump. A softer one: a pillow, pushed off Leah's bed with her convulsive reentry into consciousness. Blearily she blinks towards the door, then at the clock, and then at the pillow (why not). "I'll kill him," she mumbles and drags herself out of bed and into a fuzzy, ratty blue terrycloth robe. Goes to the door. Opens it. Announces, "I'll kill you."
It's unfair. Unfair, I say. A man's player heads towards confrontation and righteous indignation, and his RP partner decides to pull out the funny. Damn her. This pose instantly made me laugh, because it's so ridiculous and so comic and so (damn her!) endearing. Not to mention absolutely realistic. Not being a morning person myself, I have the greatest difficulty trying to wake up when roused suddenly, and it usually takes an act of God to get me actually functional. Short sentences, list-format, gives the pose the minimalist feel of just-woken-up functionality. Bare essentials. (Open eyes. Stand up. Fall down. Swear.)
"Threatening bodily harm to a cop," mocks Rossi, pushing his way past Leah with peremptory assurance. "That'll look good on your record. We do a mug shot, you should wear that outfit. The blue sets off your teeth. --What the fuck, Canto. The /Friends/?"
He's had access to her apartment before, and under more congenial circumstances. This time he doesn't wait for invitation, flying in high and hard under the police banner. Let her argue him out of it; he's ready and primed for a fight. 'The blue sets off your teeth' is a reference to her police background, and biting! which is a reference to the porch log, long ago. He does not acknowledge her nudity. He remembers that she uses sex to distract him. Not happening this time, woman. We are manly. We are mighty. We are strong!
Leah peers into the empty hallway for a suspended moment. Thought finally kicks in, kicks /her,/ and she shuts the door and turns around. "Huh?"
The newspaper slaps to the coffee table, showing an irrelevant byline; a frown skips across to Leah, measures her, then moves on to the kitchen. "You got coffee? Let me make you some coffee. Then we can have a little talk about you and some of your new associates. How's that?"
Leah blinks. "I don't have a record."
Damn you, xmm_leah. Stop making me LAUGH. Obviously, Leah is not at the same mental level Rossi would expect from, say, a caterpillar. She needs coffee. Rossi is a coffee drinker, and so he sympathizes; he is quite willing to serve as the supply, at least insofar as the moment is concerned. If he were actually conducting a real interrogation, he would be perfectly brutal in the withholding of sorely needed caffeine. Also, you can't have fights with caterpillars. One poorly-planned footstep, and the conversation's over. Rossi intends to have a real figh-- er, conversation.
"You will if you keep this shit up," pitches the drawl of baritone from the kitchen. Cabinets slam; water sluices into the coffeemaker's carafe. "Go wash your face. Get find wherever it is you've been keeping your brain and stick it back in your head. Kidnapping, Canto. Not to mention association with a terrorist organization. What do you think you are, Barney? Think you'll squirm out of it with great big purple charm?"
I ... have no idea where Barney came from. Sometimes the things Rossi says puzzles me. Who knew there was a dinosaur living in his head?
"I'm not purple!" protests Leah on her wander back into the living room. Her hands hang loose and heavy in the robe's pockets, and she stares at him. "Barney? I just wrote a thing. Got me a lot of money. And press. Did you see me on TV?"
A green eye caps itself with black, and squints at Leah across the breakfast counter. "I had a date with a corpse. And then MA. You been reading the news, Canto? Miller came back. Woman's like a bad fart in a closed room. --Go wash your face."
Present tense for Sabella, because even if Rossi did actually see her dissected and dismantled, well. He's learned not to believe everything he sees, let's just say. How very familiar and dictatorial of him, to be sure: go wash your face. Brush your teeth. Comb your hair. Not to mention making coffee for her. Overtones of the humdrum, everyday exchanges between boyfriend and girlfriend. Except, you know, the talk about corpses and the undead. And, of course, they're really not a couple.
Leah marvels, "Is my /face/ purple?"
"Yes." The sink shuts off with a squeak. Rossi turns away to busy himself with the coffee maker. "Now go wake up."
"Shit," Leah mutters and goes into the bathrooom. Tap on (hiss). Tap off (shush). She reemerges with her face scrubbed and beads of water outlining her sleep-soft features like translucent bangles. Patting absently at cheeks and brow to mop them up, she leans over the counter and studies him from there. "You're mad. At me."
Hips settled against the back counter, already perfumed by the first seductive, draft-borne scents of brewing coffee, Chris folds his arms across his chest and cants his head at Leah. "Mad," he echoes, mellowly enough."Why should I be mad? Turns out you associate with the Friends of Humanity. You were a knowing participant in a kidnapping. You /interviewed/ -- shit, Canto. You /know/ Professor Grey."
I have been reminded again lately that Leah's player is the queen of imagery. She has a mastery of simile and metaphor that just blows everybody else out of the water. This is my way of saying that 'translucent bangles' is lovely, but by no means the only place in this log (or, in general, her writing) where she creates a beautiful, apropos, and utterly lickable picture with words. It amused me that she stated the obvious, though I doubt it was done as a search for understanding. Rossi is upset with Leah, certainly. There is the obvious criminal involvement, not to mention his own violent feelings towards terrorist and hate organizations in general: not unreasonable, considering 9/11 and his family and friends' NYPD and FDNY affiliations, and his own unfortunate encounters with terrorists. Somehow the fact that Leah was acquainted with the John Grey -- asshaberdashery. Chris remembers! -- is what really ticks him off.
Cautiously Leah allows, "I've met him before. Am I under arrest, Detective? Do I call my lawyer?"
"I'm thinking about it," Rossi bites back, the first hint of temper stabbing through his voice. "What the fuck, Leah? Are you completely nuts?"
"No," and Leah slouches lower over the counter, supported on pushed-apart elbows and pushed-back feet. She picks at a chip in the Formica with her thumbnail. "I'm not nuts," she says bitterly. "I'm just doing my job, and fuck you, Rossi. You wanna drag me in to talk to the Feds or whoever about Dr. Grey, you go ahead, but--" hot pale eyes snap up at him, and her mouth is an ugly, squashed pink worm "--you can get the fuck out of my apartment otherwise."
"I'm making you coffee," the man informs with wild, sweet menace. Kindness. Between friends. He unfolds, leaning to brace his own arms wide against the sink's edge, sympathy carved deep on the hard face. "Everyone needs coffee to start out a productive day of black, malevolent evil-doing. It's the American way. Coffee, morning paper, then chaos."
I am amused by this last pose. 'wild, sweet menace.' Sometimes the words work for me. Usually, I have to work for them. Rossi provides the tally, then fills each one in turn: coffee, morning paper, chaos. I seem to recall having a flashback to the Percy/Shaw breaking log, which explains the word choice in the pose. Another image of Leah's that I enjoyed: the ugly, squashed pink worm.
The more Leah tries to drive Rossi away, the more he, well, stays, because he is bloody-minded and tenacious in a truly inconsistent way. If they were actually dating in the normal sense of the word, it would succeed without question. Since they are not, and Leah is so blatant about trying to push everyone away: he sticks around. Men. They never seem to do the right thing at the right time. Somewhere along the line, Rossi gets fixated on the notion of feeding her breakfast.
Like any Italian, he associates high drama with food. Emo? Eat. Food is an accessory which, like black, goes with everything. In the meantime, it also gives his hands something to do. If he is cooking, he cannot be tempted to throw something at Leah's head. This only works until he has a cup of scalding hot coffee in his fist, at which point all bets are out the window. The real reason, however, is more simplistic. Stupid goop that he is, Rossi really does have (unacknowledged and conflicted) feelings for Leah. Making her breakfast is about one of the only ways that he can take care of her, and so that's what he does -- without, mind you, having any real understanding that that's why he's doing it.
Leah jerks away from the counter. "Asshole," she snarls and stalks away, fists tight at her sides.
The kitchen breathes in. Exhales coffee. Wonders, nicely, "Want some toast?"
Never trust Rossi when he does anything nicely. He does not do things nicely. Or kindly. Usually, it's an overlay for something nowhere near as innocuous.
"I want," Leah grits through her teeth, "to kill you, as I said. Get out of here, Rossi. Go."
"I'll take that as a yes," decides Rossi, and in short order, the toaster's metallic chitter announces it has been set. A cupboard bangs; ceramic clinks against the counter. "So what's the story?" he wonders more lazily, baritone coaxed into conversational timbres. "Do the Friends have some sort of hold on you? Threaten you? Your family? What?"
Nothing quite so maddening as a man who blithely ignores you when you're trying to talk to him. His first guess, ironically the most accurate, is a flippant one, and not meant terribly seriously. It is, after all, such a melodramatic possibility; it's actually meant as mockery more than actual fact-finding. At this point, Rossi is inclined to think that this is a backlash of fear on Leah's part, based on Zoe's injury of Aaron; that given time, space, and a lot of reasoned, intelligent argument by yours truly, she will be brought to see reason. Don't laugh. He is capable of enlightened discussion. He was, after all, trained by Jesuits. Once upon a time.
Leah turns on a slow, dug-in heel. She informs him coldly, "I am not a member of the Friends of Humanity."
So. The smell of toast twines lovingly around coffee; the refrigerator bangs more sharply than its wont, rattling glass in its slam. "Okay," Rossi says agreeably, while metal crashes on the stove. More glass tinkles; a drawer's scrape exhumes a fork. Scrambled eggs. "They've got to be breaking some kind of truth in advertising law with that name. You think? 'Friends of Humanity' my ass. So you're not a member. But they bring you in to interview the people they've kidnapped. What is that, professional courtesy?"
It's an old interview trick. Don't answer the question you're asked. Answer the question you wish you'd been asked. However, doing that betrays other things, doesn't it? Chief among them, that you don't want to answer the question you've been asked. That only works as long as the other person isn't willing to ask the question again, and latch on to demanding an answer, a la Danny Concannon. Give Chris a moment. He'll get back to it.
Breakfast is such an olfactory experience. Coffee, toast, eggs, bacon: it's such a comfort meal for Chris, whose mother always made sure they had a hearty breakfast before shoving them out the door to face the real world. Hidden in the kitchen as he is, it's sound and smell that constitute his presence, and that convey his irritation. The smells speak of affection (loving, something that he is inherently incapable of admitting aloud) while the non-vocal noises attest to his temper. This is one of those physical moments that I enjoy, where one sense claims one thing, and another claims something different: body language proving that words are a lie, for instance. In this case, scent over sound.
I digress for a moment to rave a little. This is one of the wonderful things about give and take in RP, the ability or the willingness to trust your RP partner enough to expose what's going on inside the character, knowing (or believing) that your partner will not take these exposures the wrong way: i.e. exploit them in an unbelievable, artificial manner for their own IC or OOC ends. Exposure of your own character's inner workings should, if the RP partnership is equal, add depth and substance to the entire scene. Even if your partner doesn't exploit it, at the very least you know you're making an impact, and that you are RPing with, not to an actual person behind the character, one who's reacting emotionally and viscerally to your work. Not through meta, necessarily -- though xmm_summers and xmm_percy, for instance, have this way with meta that just blows my mind -- but through word choice, through pose, through posture, through intonation and timbre. This is the point of writing physical poses, as opposed to just vocalizations: emotional, mental, imagined substance.
Leah shakes with the intensity of her fist-clenching. It ripples her voice with a false waver, since her expression is perfectly set and her gaze perfectly steady. "I don't know what you're talking about, and I'm not going to talk about it without a lawyer present."
See what I mean? In her pose, you have a lie, belied.
And I mention, since I am in this train of thought anyway, that RP chemistry is one of those things that rarely just happen. Precious though mine is with Leah's player, it's one that's built up over time, and interaction, and communication. It takes work, though once it's there, yowzah. Glorious, fantastic stuff. Okay. Enough with the love-fest. Moving on....
Eggs crack, and are beaten. With prejudice. "You've already forgotten?" marvels Chris from the kitchen, and tips to crane through the breakfast nook, eyes wide and mocking. "There was a newspaper article with your name on it just the other day. What, four days ago. 'Leah Canto,' it said. --Maybe the Times misunderstood."
A pause. "Rossi." Soft. "Chris." Softer. "Please leave me alone. Put the eggs down and leave. Please."
The rattle of egg-beating silences. "Leah." Soft. "Not going to happen." Softer. "Not until you tell me what's going on."
Leah noted in her commentary of this log that this is one of those give-and-take moments, where I pick up her pose and throw it back at her. I say, apropos, that what it really is is an indication that I've actually read her pose. You'd be surprised how often I don't read other people's poses. Skim, yes. Read, no. It is a bad habit, and one that I am working on, but I confess quite readily that sometimes real life distraction gets in the way. I have found that there are some RPers whose poses I actually read, without fail, and I have tied it into (1) my respect for their writing; (2) my respect for their RPing; (3) my respect for their players; (4) my interest in the scene.
If you pay attention, it's surprisingly easy to recognize which players actually read your poses.
"I have nothing to say to you," Leah says stiffly and sits down on the couch. Her back thus to him, she puts her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands.
"That's okay," Rossi says -- threatens -- with a return to normalcy, such as it is. The toaster clanks in victory; the hiss of eggs meeting skittle dulls the baritone voiceover. "I can just talk and you can listen. You want butter on your toast?"
So terribly, terribly domestic of them. Do you want sugar in your coffee, honey? No thanks, love. Can I take this baseball bat and bludgeon you over the head? Sure, why not? Could you bring me some more toast, while you're at it? Anything you like, sugar plum.
Rossi is off-stage, as it were, and so I pose that way for Leah's perspective: no visuals, only a continuation of sound and ominously absent fury.
Leah rubs the heel of one hand across her eye, then repeats the process on the other side. "No. I'm not hungry. Not even for a last meal, thanks. Do I get a cigarette, too?"
In answer, plates clatter and the kitchen sizzles. A few moments of blessed muteness (opinions hoard themselves behind will, beating restless, anxious wings against gritted teeth) and then Rossi is back in the living room at last, bearing bounty: plates of toast and eggs; mugs of hot, black coffee. "Here," he says, neutral. "Get some caffeine in you."
Anxiety has that feel, fluttering around in the pit of your stomach. Opinions born of anxiety are, I imagine, much the same way, although they're ready to come out and play in the real world, barring restraint. Contrary to popular opinion, Rossi has some. It's not time to fight with, or to dig. He's already had his first cup and meal of the day, and an obscure instinct for fair play (it isn't an actual police interrogation, after all) not to mention respect for Leah, prompts him to bring her up to par with him before he brings out the rubber hose. Big brother Chris, taking care of her -- neutral, asexual, will not be distracted by sex again -- except there's nothing brotherly about it, is there? Poor, stupid, willfully blind Rossi.
Leah jags a laugh. "Before you drag me downtown?"
"You said you weren't one of the Friends," reminds Chris, depositing his burden on the coffee table before claiming a mug for himself. He stands over her, considering. "You lying to me?"
Leah shakes her head, looking at plate and mug. "I don't want to go downtown," she tells him with the frayed edge of humor. "Lying to the police is bad. Even if everyone does it."
Bad, mouths Rossi, an unseen glitter of matching humor dawning, however grudgingly. "So," he says. And again: "How'd you get mixed up in the Friends?"
There's something very little girl lost about what Leah says. Don't lie to the police! Shades of parents teaching their children, mantras learned by rote until they become articles of faith. It amuses Chris, who remembers his own indoctrination as a youth. Amusement doesn't soften him, however. 'Glittering' is a deliberate word choice, to counteract the 'dawning.'
"I'm /not,/ dammit. I just write ... articles. Advocating freedom of expression -- you hear of that?" Sullenly Leah transfers her plate from coffee table to knees and stabs at inoffensive eggs. "Two sides to every story. I'm doing the other side, to balance all this shiny-happy 'we love mutants!' crap."
"Except the Friends aren't the /other side/, Canto," says Rossi with heavy-voiced reason, planting a hand on the sofa's back to lean. "That's like saying al-Qaeda's the other side of democracy. So tell me, how'd you get involved with the /Friends/?"
Er. I think I used the al-Qaeda spelling from CNN. This particular ludicrous line of reasoning comes from a relatively weak West Wing episode response to 9/11. As I recall, it wasn't one of Aaron Sorkin's best. However, I must occasionally make a nod to the show, simply to drive xmm_percy crazy. Even if this reference wasn't, well, obvious.
Despite all his conscious and unconscious attempts at evening the board before they get into it, Rossi can't help but utilize that body language he uses in the interrogation room. They've become habit now, dangerously so. He stands over her. He leans into her. He looms a little, exploiting his greater bulk and physical presence in private just as he does in public.
Leah mutters, "The hell I will," and shovels breakfast into her mouth.
Wonders Chris, grim, "Why not? They got something on you, don't they? Who'd they target? Your family?"
...and there that question is again. She didn't answer it the first time. He's not stupid, he's familiar with that trick. Now that she's got some food and drink her, he asks it again, challenges her to answer it, no matter how stupid and silly it sounds as a premise.
Leah chews and swallows. She picks up her coffee and has a swallow. She puts the mug back on the table. She carves off another bite of eggs and downs it. She does not, under any circumstance, look at her interrogator.
"That's it, isn't it?" The coffee, forgotten entirely, lowers. Rossi's shadow pitches, creeping across Leah's back. "They're threatening your family."
Looooooom. Threat for threat -- although it isn't meant that way, except perhaps from Leah's perspective. Possessive, in a sense. Protective, certainly. Her lack of answer is answer enough, and the most ridiculous and idiotic of suppositions becomes, instead, abrupt certainty. She's being threatened, and every protective instinct in Chris instantly wakes up and snarls.
"Don't be ridiculous," Leah says in a low voice as she stares at the coffee mug on the coffee table and eats her eggs. "You've seen too many movies."
The baritone says over a current of cynicism, "You mean the kind where there are superheroes and supervillains and people have magic powers?" Arms fold; Rossi stoops to lean over them, head dropping black and intimate over Leah's shoulder. His voice softens, quiet. "Welcome to New York City, 2005. We can get them into protection, Canto."
I've mentioned before that Chris uses his voice, too, and intimacy: serpent in Eve's ear, though marginally more benevolent than that original article. (Although I've always wondered if the serpent in Eden didn't have the best interests of Adam and Eve in mind. I mean, until they got kicked out of the Garden, the pair of them must have been fantastically dull.) That warm, deep voice murmuring in your ear, his presence at your back, just over your shoulder, his body heat prickling against your throat -- he violates as much as he seduces and coaxes, exploiting a keen awareness of personal space. Her personal space.
Leah's body shakes. Grimly she keeps eating. "Back off, Rossi."
"All of them," says Rossi, cajoling, coaxing, the serpent at Eve's breast. His breath tickles her ear, stirring the sensitive hairs at her nape. Memories of tenderness, subverted to purpose. "Your mother, your sister -- you know they killed one of the cops at the Purity rally."
Hah. And I even use the serpent reference in the next pose. I even write out what he's doing: memories of tenderness, subverted to purpose. If you ask him, he claims to make a distinction between personal and professional. The reality is, he's never not a cop, and the converse is as true: he's never not himself. Off-duty and on-duty are illusory fabrications, instituted for his own sanity. Shared moments of tenderness between them are ruthlessly wielded against her, emotional and physical blackmail -- for her own good! -- to get to the truth.
"One of my Uncle Jerry's boys. I know." Leah slides down the couch away from him. Her shoulders are still trembling, but she's still chewing eggs. "I went to the memorial service. It was nice."
"I was there." Treacherous Chris, voice nudging against her awareness, stroking lightly at the threads of conscience and morality. Coffee-warmed fingers touch that line of throat, brushing into the pulse beneath the skin. "Lots of dead. I probably would've been one of them, you think? Friends' bullet, Brotherhood bullet -- what's the difference?"
Treacherous SOB. He remembers her mentioning that she might be in love with him, though he prudently (cravenly!) says nothing about it. But that doesn't mean he won't try to use it to his advantage. Pluck that heartstring, if it's there. Play on the pulse, that vulnerable little reminder of life.
Leah says flatly, "No difference. Dead is dead. Isn't that what you always say? I'll go to your funeral, too. Dance at your wake."
A pause. Unseen, a muscle jerks in Chris's jaw. "You really believe the shit the Friends believe in?"
Well ... shit. Didn't work. Remove yourself a little, grow a little remote, because somewhere there is a little pang that it didn't work. So maybe she doesn't care. We will not acknowledge that it hurt, just a tiny bit. Not that we want Leah in love with us. That would be inconvenient. Uncomfortable. Awkward. Right. Let's be reasonable about this.
Eggs are done. Plate's on the table. Leah picks up her coffee and walks away from him, to the windows, and stands and sips and looks out. "Someone has to speak for them," she says, still without inflection. "Are you really surprised?"
"Yeah," says Rossi, frankly. "I am. I have a hard time believing you're that stupid."
Leah snorts into her mug. "No, you're not. You've never thought that much of me. I was Gabe's girlfriend, remember?"
"That was then. This is now. /Dammit/, Leah--" Frustration roils, slipping its leash for a moment. Is bitten back. Reason is the way to go. "Are you out of your fucking mind?"
Okay. That ... might not have sounded like the voice of reason. Oops.
Leah has a way of pushing his buttons that few others can. She walks away from him, deliberately distancing herself. Another small pang. The reminder of Gabe is a deeper dig. There's so much wrapped up in that one little name: his fraternal guilt over stepping into his brother's turf; his unacknowledged resentment that Leah was with him before she was with Chris -- not, mind you, that he has any particularly possessive feelings towards Leah. REALLY. Oddly, he has no negative feelings whatsoever about her relationship with, say, Aaron Grossman, which says as much about Aaron's charming harmlessness as it does about Chris's feelings about Gabe. Nothing like family to fuck you up.
I have never had opportunity to be sure, but I think Chris's spectacular relationship failures with previous girlfriends were due, in part, to the fact that he has a strongly possessive streak without the natural jealousy that should go with it. He does not have insecurity of that sort, perhaps because he's never really been seriously in love. Anger, yes. Jealousy -- a fear of losing the other person -- never. It's either colossal arrogance and self-confidence, or a lack of emotional investment. I suspect it's more the latter than the former; while Chris is certainly mature enough for most things, when it comes to romantic relationships, he has an emotional immaturity that should thoroughly screw him over when the right (or wrong) woman comes along.
With a calm look back at him, composed and wan, Leah sips coffee. "Maybe. Why do you care? Do your job or leave me alone. I told you already."
Teeth show white. "Convenient peace and quiet," says Rossi, straightening to skirt around the sofa's edge and sink a hip on its arm. "Prefer not to have people pointing out that what you're doing is insane?"
Leah shrugs and returns to watching the day outside her apartment. "I don't care what they say. I'm doing my job, and I'm doing a good job of it. What else matters?"
"They're /terrorists/, Canto," bites Rossi, temper flaring again to skew patience. "Fucking /terrorists/. They kidnapped the guy. --You could get thrown in jail for being an accessory to a crime, goddammit."
Terrorism should mean something special to Leah, as it does to Rossi, as it does to any native New Yorker, particularly one born and bred in the NYPD mold. The word and association with the word has its own connotations of being beyond the pale, past redemption; the possible personal consequences are almost an afterthought, the slightly ridiculous 'and by the way' that is, in its own way, almost an anticlimax.
Leah swallows, but keeps her voice steady. "Well, then I will. Journalists have done time before, and maybe I'll get a great expose out of it. You never know! Gotta look on the bright side, Rossi."
Anger, rarely distant, fans itself hot in the green eyes. Deliberate, careful, Rossi plants his mug on the coffee table, out of reach. Out of use. "You're pissing me off," he informs, Brooklyn-harsh. "What is this bullshit? You're not this stupid. You're not this ... goddammit, you're not this /stupid/. Don't tell me you're just doing it for the money, because I've seen you turn shit away for fucking /principles/."
So tempting to throw that coffee, to hurl it right at that maddening head. I mentioned as much to Leah's player, OOCly, and she said that she expected it at any moment. You see? Rossi has restraint! He puts the mug down. He does not believe Leah has been bought with anything as simple as money. There's a strain of idealism in both of them, and like recognizes like, however warped it may be in both their sad, twisted psyches...
"It's damned good money," muses Leah as she breathes across the top of her gently steaming mug. "And I got to be on Larry King Live. Me. All by myself. Never had /that/ happen before. He's a nice guy, you know? Even if the suspenders are now and always have been and always will be entirely too much. Silly old man."
"Is it the fucking /fame/?" rasps Rossi, incredulous for a split second before belief, more terrible, sweeps it away. "That's what they got you with? Putting you in the spotlight, getting the offers, having the exclusive?"
...on the other hand, he can believe fame. He knows that Achilles' heel of the reporter, that desire for the scoop, that ravening after a story and the byline and the front page story. He's been the victim of it before -- the aftermath of the Miller case, among other red ticket cases, was made notable and wretched by the press. Fame is not a pull he has ever felt, being more prone to curse its interference in his work and personal life than not. (The reprecussions of fame in the precinct are, as ever, brutal and hilarious. His fellow cops are quick-witted and razor-tongued, and not likely to forgive or forget a man's 15 minutes.) Rossi's weaknesses and temptations are the same that Beston fell to, originally: cutting corners, corrupting evidence, pushing a little too hard and too fast. Good intentions paving the road to hell.
Leah angles a beatific smile over her shoulder. "It's just delightful to hear how well you think of me, Chris. Maybe you should just leave me as your whore and have done with it."
Again the muscle jumps, sharp-etched against the skin. "Nice try, Canto, but I've been related to Gabe longer than you've dated him. You're out of your league, if you're thinking of pushing me off. Tell me /why/."
She so is, too. Gabe is the master manipulator. Leah? Grasshopper. She was well out of that relationship. Chris isn't so lucky.
Grimacing, Leah turns to sit on the sill. She daintily fluffs her robe across her legs and then sets the mug alongside her seat. "Or else?" she says, and some black memory whispers in her voice and peers out of her bleak eyes.
Or /else/. Rossi straightens on a hasty jerk, and strides at Leah to slam his arm into the wall beside her. Temper roils, barbed; hurt crouches behind its shield, bleeding. "I don't want to end up taking you downtown, Canto. --Dammit, Leah. Tell me you're the victim here." Almost a plea.
Don't like that pose. Bad, especially since I duplicated a phrase from before (temper roils). The part about the crouching, bleeding hurt isn't awful, though was a little too much emotional exposure in the pose. Oh well. It refers in part to the last log with Leah, which was -- I think -- the two of them getting drunk. Rossi shared a little too much about his brothers, and so here we go: young, battered, idealistic Chris, crouched behind the armor of his temper and immediate violence.
Leah looks up at him. A smile teases at her mouth. "You want to save me?" She runs a hand down his front, pensively watching fingers' glide, and looks up again. No smile now. "Knight in shining armor?"
"Fuck you," snaps Chris, bending into his arm -- into that hand's caress -- before catching her fingers in his. Squeezes. Gentles, with a forced press of will. "Tell me why you're helping them."
That touch. Leah's player loved it. So did I. She regarded it as without sensuality or sexuality, I seem to recall. To Rossi, everything is sensual, because he is ultimately a physical beast: hence the constant struggle to wield reason instead of other weapons in his arsenal; hence his general failure whenever he tries. (This might not entirely be his fault. Humanity is not, by nature, rational.) Something about the touch speaks to him, some suspicion of mockery, or desperation, or farewell, and so he catches her hand so the touch can't end, so she can't use it to say good-bye. If you never close your eyes, tomorrow can't come. It's such a childish, forlorn, hopeless attempt.
He believes that she's being threatened. He is almost convinced. But he can't do anything, because she refuses to acknowledge it or ask for his help. His options are limited; he can't pull in the resources at his disposal, not in the way that he wants, because she won't give him the opening he needs to go back to his superiors.
"I think," Leah says quietly but clearly, "that I should have an attorney present. I really do." She worms her hand free and presents both of them to him, wrists pressed together, waiting only for the cuffs. Her eyes are simmering, shimmering pools of old-leaf brown.
Chris stills. Regards her with shadowed, hungry eyes. "Don't do this."
Another pose that could have been so much better, but wasn't. Her body language asks to be arrested, putting them, effectively, on opposite sides of the fence. Not allies, but enemies: cop, suspect; law, terrorist.
Leah bites her lip. "I have to," she whispers. "Enough people have died, haven't they?" Her arms stay out, but they shake. They shake.
"They're threatening you," Chris murmurs back. Catches up one of those hands again -- binds its wrist with his strong, strong hand -- to press a desperate kiss against its fingers.
And, abruptly, the player realized that Chris is actually in love with Leah. It's hidden way down deep, absolutely unacknowledged. Of course now is when I get to make this discovery, at the worst possible time. Goddamn character. He captures an offered wrist with his hand, warmer than handcuffs and less official; at the same time, more binding, for him as well as for her, though he doesn't know it yet.
Blood trickles down Leah's chin. "I can't -- I can't talk -- Christ, Chris, you /know/ -- if I /say/ anything--"
"I'll help you," Rossi promises, reckless knight. Matching hurt catches at his breath; he drops to his haunches, a thumb warm and rough against the ribbon of red. "Don't do that. /Leah/. We'll put your family in protection--"
It's almost an admission that she needs help. He'll take it. He moves on it instantly, pushing her towards action and solution, all the things that he can provide. He's on the cusp of commitment, and absolutely ready to take that leap. Reckless, when it comes to the people he cares about. (He knows he is, but for some reason this doesn't make him sit up and realize that he has feelings for her. Because, oh, he is so blind.)
"No." Leah wrenches her head away from his touch, collects her hand again, hugs herself. "Chris, I can't say anything to you," she says to the dining table across the apartment, where she's looking and looking /hard./ "I can't, and I won't. Stop pushing me. Stop /pushing/ me!" Hysteria wends urgent through her voice, like the dribble of lip-bitten blood.
The green eyes chill behind the sweep of lashes, speculation (suspicion) sweeping across the apartment and its innocence. "It's okay, Canto," Rossi says in an abrupt about-face, dropping next to the woman to wind his arm around her shoulder. Reels in, determined. "I won't push. Look. I'm not pushing. Calm down."
Abrupt reversal. That edge of hysteria, and Leah is so strong, and it shocks him a little, like a splash of water in the face. Why won't she tell him? Perhaps because she's being monitored even in her apartment. Just like -- hah -- a movie. Then again, he's been on the listening side of surveillance before, so why not? Why shouldn't someone be listening? Deadly and dangerous, if so. He backs off verbally, even as he pulls in, physically: again, a lie and a truth at the same time.
Leah balls up her fist and pounds his shoulder. Just once, and softly. "Dammit," she despairs. "Why does everyone have to push? And push and push and-- I'm just doing my job! I'm doing my job! I'm reporting, and I'm getting paid for it, and I have new agents and a bodyguard and--" And hiccup. And tremors.
"Just following orders," says Chris in grave, biting mockery -- and then remembers a second later and atones, apologetic. "I didn't mean that. Shh. Leah." Grudging compassion wraps its sheath around his voice, dulling its edge; the arm tightens, contracting into Rossi comfort, Rossi security. Quiet, subdued, he says, "I'm sorry. You know what you're doing, I guess."
Flailing Leah instantly brings out the protective side of him, and in light of his new suspicion, he overreacts in the other direction by heading straight to mockery: that same instinct that she has thrown in his face and hated on him for, more than once. He forces his more sympathetic reaction, when his first and most urgent desire is to get her out of there so he can push some more and get her to safety. Once more, he lies. He absolutely does not believe she knows what she's doing, and he will protect her despite herself. He will!
Leah hits harder. "This isn't fucking Nuremberg," she snarls.
"You're with a group that's talking genocide," Chris snaps back, unable, unwilling to hold his tongue. "Thin end of the wedge, Canto. You think-- never mind." And so much for comfort.
Leah shoves her head into his shoulder now. Canto stubbornness, Canto pigheadedness. "I'm not talking genocide. I'm not /with/ them. I'm /not./"
So damn cute, shoving her head into his shoulder. (Ahem.) It's a gesture I've seen small children do with their parents, burrowing for comfort, and matched with the wail of repetition -- Am not! Am not! -- there's this image of Father Chris again, rough and tumble love. All good intentions aside, he cannot quite let go of this bone. He's a poor actor when it isn't his job, and even when it comes down to playing a perp or a witness, it's always him, good cop or bad cop. There's theater in him, but no acting.
"You're preaching their word," Rossi says grimly, (and so much for silence and understanding.) "You're /spreading/ it. Helping them look like reasonable people so they can shove the shit they do under the carpet. Kidnapping. Murder. A dead /cop/."
"I didn't kill a cop!" Leah wails softly.
"You're an accessory to /kidnapping/," Chris reminds, bruising. "It's only a matter of /time/."
Leah breathes, "No," fervently, hotly, and whips her head through a negatory shake. "I had no idea what was going on with Dr. Grey. Before, during, after -- /nothing./ Any defense lawyer would have it thrown out of court for lack of a prima facie case. I'm doing my /job./" She clings to that, even as she clings to him.
Chris squeezes, a little harder, a little fiercer: angrily, (protectively, possessively) -- "A /crime/," he says with bitter emphasis. "A harmless old guy who gets traumatized, whose family gets to be terrorized, just because -- what, exactly? You /knew/ the guy'd been kidnapped, you knew who had them. Why the fuck didn't you say something, Canto?"
How he hates hearing justifications, excuses, 'I didn't know,' 'I didn't want to interfere,' 'I didn't think it was any of my business.' He hears it so often on his job from people who didn't step in, didn't report it: neighbors of abusive husbands and parents, witnesses who didn't look out the window, people who stood around and averted their eyes. It's the New York way, but he hates it so much, and hearing it from Leah just fans the flames of his already leaping temper.
Leah lifts her head and asks bitterly, "Who was I going to tell? You? Lazzaro? And watch you happy bastards plunge in where you shouldn't and get shot down for your noble pains."
"God/da/-- Christ, Canto. What do you think this is, some kind of movie?" Exasperation hinges Chris's sweep up, the jerk of head that breezes black hair and flames the green eyes. "Believe it or not, the NYPD's got /people/ for this kind of shit. Give us a little credit for being professionals."
Reference: movie. Leah's commentary notes she's working off a script, and Chris is not. In the movies, the noble hero is in from the beginning and handles everything, even the storming of the Citadel of Evil. Rossi, not being an idiot, calls the SWAT. See? He's got an instinct for self-preservation. If nothing else, he's practical. Guys in gear with big guns, headsets, and training, will be a lot more useful on an extraction than Rossi and his bullet-proof-like-saran-wrap suit and tie.
There's something to be said for professionalism.
She cringes, but doesn't back down. "I'm not talking about it anymore." Leah stonewalls instead. Again; some more. "Give /me/ the same credit. It's my profession. It's my life. Things are quiet now, aren't they? So."
"It never stays quiet," says Chris, prophetic and far-eyed Cassandra. "So the rally's over. What's the next thing? Who's the next person they decide to shut up?"
This is a jab at some earlier comment of hers, that the Friends deserve to have a voice. In theory, Rossi does not object to this too much -- except in the dark certainty that they are fucking terrorists, and should be shot through the head, which would negate the need for vocalizing of ANY sort -- but why should they deserve to have a voice when they insist on being the only voice? He hurls that back at her, mocking her tenets of freedom of the press.
Leah looks at him. "Me, probably."
Rossi bruises in earnest, one hand convulsing around a wrist. "/Leah/."
As much as he's been thinking it, hearing it is something else, and Rossi's reaction is immediate. It's as much fear as it is fury. Watching someone go to the devil willfully and willingly is so annoying. A half-breath before, she's talking like a rational person, justifying herself and them, and then she turns around a second later and pulls this shit. Damn woman.
A sob, twisted out of her like the last spoonful of water from a worn, dirty dishrag. "/Stop/ it. Stop it! Let me go, Rossi!"
Belatedly realizing, muscles relax, manacles loosening and falling away: from wrist, from shoulders. "Do you have some kind of death wish?" Rossi demands, baritone cresting towards anger again, breaking past unease. "What the fuck is /wrong/ with you?"
See above for my raves about Leah's use of language. Worn, dirty dishrag. So descriptive, and so apt. Spoon. (The Tick thoughts, referenced two poses later by me and moths.) He knows his own strength, because he's had accidents with it -- when it first materialized; he was a late and sudden bloomer -- and so he judges it to a nicety, except when he's upset. When he's really upset, as opposed to the dramatics that come with being the Big Bad Cop. I mentioned in a different commentary that Chris has a morbid horror of becoming his older brothers, with their emotional and physical abuse. He bruises her in earnest, and later (when she shows him) will feel real guilt about it, together with an acid taste of fear that he did it to someone he cares about.
Leah cradles her wrist and glares at him with rheumy eyes. "What, before or after a member of the New York Police Department assaulted me?"
The green-eyed gaze settles like moth wings on Leah's wrist, fleeting and light, before swinging back to the woman's face. "Jesus, Mary and Joseph," Chris breathes, making the names a curse -- and jerks upright to stalk away, punishing the floor for its mistress's failings.
Sabbath reference again. Leah returns to the Church in an attempt to absolve and punish herself; Rossi returns to the Church to punish her, defiling sanctity. Hers, that is. Going back to the Church, my ass. And now he knows why, too.
Gingerly Leah resettles on the windowsill. She even picks up her coffee for a swallow (and a grimace: it's cooled by now). "Blasphemy suits you," she sends after him sarcastically.
The man's very body is an oath, carved out of obscenity and borne in profanity; he excoriates as he moves, snatching the discarded plate and fork from the coffee table to bear it into the kitchen. Things crash, slapping their sharp voiced protest into the sink. "You want a refill?"
Back to the kitchen, and the strands of normalcy. Not that anything about their relationship could be normal; even his grope after domesticity is, in its very attempt, strained and strange. The last physical view of him (for her) is sharp in its description, because once he's in the kitchen there's only sound. The last image of him should be distinct, therefore, and eloquent of his mood. This pose is not so bad, though he forgets the mugs.
"No." Leah rubs her forehead. Sounds tired. "I want to go back to bed and pretend this never happened."
"Bad dream?" asks the kitchen, falsely consoling. "The conversation? Or the Sinn Fein life? --You're not getting rid of me, Canto. I'm not Alyssa, or Melcross."
Leah says sweetly, "Or Gabe."
Something cracks in the kitchen. Water hisses. "Broke a plate," Chris reports, utterly without remorse. "Sorry about the fork. I'll bring some pliers by and fix it later."
That name again. That button. She just has to find that sore spot and PUSH.
"No need. I have pliers. I even know how to use them. Failing that--" Leah shrugs and folds her arms over soft, terryclothed belly "--I have other forks. You wanna ruin more of my stuff, or maybe beat me up some more, go ahead. Do what you have to do, Rossi. It's all any of us can do."
Hidden in the kitchen, Rossi braces his arms wide and slouches between them, head hanging, eyes closed, temper mangled by anxiety. Water whines between them, counterpoint to his silence. "You're making me crazy," he says at last, bland and conversational again. "I can't figure out whether to beat some sense into you, or lock you in a closet to keep you safe."
It's as close as he can come to admitting his feelings for her, from the safe anonymity of the kitchen. She can't see him, but for the players' sakes I did the physical pose: once more the lie behind the voice, which is casual and absent of deep feeling. The urge to beat her is serious, and driving. He does have an element of the abuser in him; that black joy of inflicting physical punishment is always under restraint. He will not become Paul. But oh, the temptation....
Leah croons, "You love me."
No answer. Another crack. "Broke your other plate," says Rossi, almost cheerfully. "I feel better."
Ah. The therapy of destruction. A little light-hearted flip of comedy, to counteract the sturm und drang of earlier. Not deliberate (maybe) but oh, so cathartic.
"My poor plates. Don't make me come over there, asshole."
"They were ugly plates." Heartless Chris. He eyes them thoughtfully; slaps a large fragment against the counter to splinter it in half again. Crash. Tinkle. "You sure you don't want more coffee?"
Leah growls a curse. "Will it make you stop breaking my shit?"
"It's already broken. Do you want more coffee?"
"Breaking more of my shit, then," Leah clarifies angrily. She huffs a breath. "God. Fine. Coffee, yespleasethankyoumisterdetective."
I laughed. Damn Leah's player again. And Rossi stays completely rooted in domesticity, where he is unassailable, untouchable, and absolutely unmovable. Such strange protections we build up around ourselves, when we're hurt and suffering. An entire moat of coffee and toast. And dishwashing.
Detective Rossi stalks out of the kitchen like a rumpled heron, bright-eyed and beady-, coffee carafe in hand. Pours. Glowers at Leah. Stalks back. Announces from that increasingly fractured nest, "Beston's primary on the John Grey kidnapping."
Leah sips. "So he'll be throwing me into the box today. D'you think I have time to get dressed first? I don't want to force you guys to give up a great psychological advantage, but the weather does leave me a little cold these days. Hate to get sick."
"Get dressed," Rossi suggests, over the thunk of plate portions being tossed in the garbage. "We're off until this afternoon."
He punishes her by telling her this, though it might not have been strategic on his part. Now she knows when she'll get pulled in, or at least whenabouts. Better that she not know, so she has that uncertainty to unbalance her, to make her anxious and fray her before they finally show up at the door. Interrogation should become a relief, then, so she's all the more ready to spill what they want to know--
--But on the other hand, now she knows she'll definitely be pulled in, and that she's about to become part of the system that her family works for. She knows what to expect, and when to expect it, and she's on the wrong side. That, too, is terrible, and it's immediate gratification (punishment!) for Chris.
"Thanks," Leah says and pushes off from the sill. Coffee mug goes on coffee table. Robe goes on couch. Naked woman goes in bedroom. And door? Door slams shut.
The sink hisses a few moments longer, exploited for the cleaning of utensils. Chris emerges into the empty living room, leans into the door, and inspects the apartment again: in silence, in deep and hostile suspicion. Straightens. Glances towards the bedroom -- and then stalks out, sweeping the robe with him. Trade for the old newspaper, left glaring on the coffee table: Friends of Humanity Suspected in Cop Death. The door closes, leaving the apartment in relative peace. Quiet guilt. The echoes of argument.
Not one of my best closings, but oh well. The robe infuriates him, so he takes it with her. It might be symbolic of her pretense, her lies, her shell of self-sufficiency and delusions of self-control. I'm inclined to think not. I think, really, he just doesn't like her robe, and is determined to destroy it.
He tosses it down the garbage chute on the way back down to his apartment. A vengeful, impulsive thing to do. People act out in such strange and unfathomable ways.
Journal entry:
I could kill her. I really could. I could beat her to a fucking pulp.
Goddammit, she's terrified. One of the bravest women I know, and she's terrified. They must be monitoring her. I'll talk to Beston. Get Eccles on her.
Time to hunt some Friends.
Then the journal entry, written -- as usual -- in a paper medium. Rossi is not prone to writing down the fullness of his thoughts, one way or another; not given to a great deal of introspection or navel-gazing, he vents his thoughts as he has them, without doing a great deal in the way of analysis or review. In the wake of the encounter, he is angry at Leah, furious at the Friends, suspicious of surveillance in Leah's apartment, and absolutely ready to go forth and fight some dragons. Poor Chris.
Until he's sure there're no taps in Leah's apartment, she's so not getting booty there again.
Date Posted: 11/20/2005
Players: Leah & Rossi
To date: Leah Canto, journalist, has been blackmailed by the Friends of Humanity in playing the part of their Sinn Fein, the acceptable propoganda arm for a terrorist organization. The price for her betrayal is the death of her family and friends, among them (implied) Det. Chris Rossi. Her secret employment by the Friends has led to a personal interview with Professor John Grey, while that helpless gentleman was temporarily held as a hostage for Jean's good behavior during the Purity rally. Chris, her neighbor, occasional lover, not to mention antagonistic and ungentlemanly friend, is only come belatedly into the realization that Leah has gone over to the dark side.
Sunday: God's day. In Chris Rossi parlance, a different matter altogether, fallen hard and fast from the Church's grace and bidding fair to plummet farther. Temper in abeyance, a newspaper's front page rolled for smiting purpose in a hand, he ambles up the hallway to Leah Canto's apartment, girded in righteous judgment and -- for modesty's sake -- jeans and a T-shirt. A fist knocks doom upon the door. Thump. Thump. "Police. Open up." Thump.
This was a confusing set for me. Sometimes it just takes a while for you to get into the swing of things, I suppose. A very Biblical set, to suit the sabbath. He's had time to lose his temper about this entire situation, then gain it again, then lose it again. He actually learned about Leah's interview of John after leaving Xavier School care, which was when he learned about John's kidnapping to begin with. The wrath of justice makes his summons official: Police, not Rossi. It's part joke, but part not, since there is an official aspect to this; he is preempting their inevitable summons of Leah to the station. Personal reasons. Damn those personal reasons.
Also, I think it really was nice of Rossi to put clothes on. Righteous judgment is all very well and good, but the wind chill kind of cuts through to the dangly bits during a New York winter.
...Thump. A softer one: a pillow, pushed off Leah's bed with her convulsive reentry into consciousness. Blearily she blinks towards the door, then at the clock, and then at the pillow (why not). "I'll kill him," she mumbles and drags herself out of bed and into a fuzzy, ratty blue terrycloth robe. Goes to the door. Opens it. Announces, "I'll kill you."
It's unfair. Unfair, I say. A man's player heads towards confrontation and righteous indignation, and his RP partner decides to pull out the funny. Damn her. This pose instantly made me laugh, because it's so ridiculous and so comic and so (damn her!) endearing. Not to mention absolutely realistic. Not being a morning person myself, I have the greatest difficulty trying to wake up when roused suddenly, and it usually takes an act of God to get me actually functional. Short sentences, list-format, gives the pose the minimalist feel of just-woken-up functionality. Bare essentials. (Open eyes. Stand up. Fall down. Swear.)
"Threatening bodily harm to a cop," mocks Rossi, pushing his way past Leah with peremptory assurance. "That'll look good on your record. We do a mug shot, you should wear that outfit. The blue sets off your teeth. --What the fuck, Canto. The /Friends/?"
He's had access to her apartment before, and under more congenial circumstances. This time he doesn't wait for invitation, flying in high and hard under the police banner. Let her argue him out of it; he's ready and primed for a fight. 'The blue sets off your teeth' is a reference to her police background, and biting! which is a reference to the porch log, long ago. He does not acknowledge her nudity. He remembers that she uses sex to distract him. Not happening this time, woman. We are manly. We are mighty. We are strong!
Leah peers into the empty hallway for a suspended moment. Thought finally kicks in, kicks /her,/ and she shuts the door and turns around. "Huh?"
The newspaper slaps to the coffee table, showing an irrelevant byline; a frown skips across to Leah, measures her, then moves on to the kitchen. "You got coffee? Let me make you some coffee. Then we can have a little talk about you and some of your new associates. How's that?"
Leah blinks. "I don't have a record."
Damn you, xmm_leah. Stop making me LAUGH. Obviously, Leah is not at the same mental level Rossi would expect from, say, a caterpillar. She needs coffee. Rossi is a coffee drinker, and so he sympathizes; he is quite willing to serve as the supply, at least insofar as the moment is concerned. If he were actually conducting a real interrogation, he would be perfectly brutal in the withholding of sorely needed caffeine. Also, you can't have fights with caterpillars. One poorly-planned footstep, and the conversation's over. Rossi intends to have a real figh-- er, conversation.
"You will if you keep this shit up," pitches the drawl of baritone from the kitchen. Cabinets slam; water sluices into the coffeemaker's carafe. "Go wash your face. Get find wherever it is you've been keeping your brain and stick it back in your head. Kidnapping, Canto. Not to mention association with a terrorist organization. What do you think you are, Barney? Think you'll squirm out of it with great big purple charm?"
I ... have no idea where Barney came from. Sometimes the things Rossi says puzzles me. Who knew there was a dinosaur living in his head?
"I'm not purple!" protests Leah on her wander back into the living room. Her hands hang loose and heavy in the robe's pockets, and she stares at him. "Barney? I just wrote a thing. Got me a lot of money. And press. Did you see me on TV?"
A green eye caps itself with black, and squints at Leah across the breakfast counter. "I had a date with a corpse. And then MA. You been reading the news, Canto? Miller came back. Woman's like a bad fart in a closed room. --Go wash your face."
Present tense for Sabella, because even if Rossi did actually see her dissected and dismantled, well. He's learned not to believe everything he sees, let's just say. How very familiar and dictatorial of him, to be sure: go wash your face. Brush your teeth. Comb your hair. Not to mention making coffee for her. Overtones of the humdrum, everyday exchanges between boyfriend and girlfriend. Except, you know, the talk about corpses and the undead. And, of course, they're really not a couple.
Leah marvels, "Is my /face/ purple?"
"Yes." The sink shuts off with a squeak. Rossi turns away to busy himself with the coffee maker. "Now go wake up."
"Shit," Leah mutters and goes into the bathrooom. Tap on (hiss). Tap off (shush). She reemerges with her face scrubbed and beads of water outlining her sleep-soft features like translucent bangles. Patting absently at cheeks and brow to mop them up, she leans over the counter and studies him from there. "You're mad. At me."
Hips settled against the back counter, already perfumed by the first seductive, draft-borne scents of brewing coffee, Chris folds his arms across his chest and cants his head at Leah. "Mad," he echoes, mellowly enough."Why should I be mad? Turns out you associate with the Friends of Humanity. You were a knowing participant in a kidnapping. You /interviewed/ -- shit, Canto. You /know/ Professor Grey."
I have been reminded again lately that Leah's player is the queen of imagery. She has a mastery of simile and metaphor that just blows everybody else out of the water. This is my way of saying that 'translucent bangles' is lovely, but by no means the only place in this log (or, in general, her writing) where she creates a beautiful, apropos, and utterly lickable picture with words. It amused me that she stated the obvious, though I doubt it was done as a search for understanding. Rossi is upset with Leah, certainly. There is the obvious criminal involvement, not to mention his own violent feelings towards terrorist and hate organizations in general: not unreasonable, considering 9/11 and his family and friends' NYPD and FDNY affiliations, and his own unfortunate encounters with terrorists. Somehow the fact that Leah was acquainted with the John Grey -- asshaberdashery. Chris remembers! -- is what really ticks him off.
Cautiously Leah allows, "I've met him before. Am I under arrest, Detective? Do I call my lawyer?"
"I'm thinking about it," Rossi bites back, the first hint of temper stabbing through his voice. "What the fuck, Leah? Are you completely nuts?"
"No," and Leah slouches lower over the counter, supported on pushed-apart elbows and pushed-back feet. She picks at a chip in the Formica with her thumbnail. "I'm not nuts," she says bitterly. "I'm just doing my job, and fuck you, Rossi. You wanna drag me in to talk to the Feds or whoever about Dr. Grey, you go ahead, but--" hot pale eyes snap up at him, and her mouth is an ugly, squashed pink worm "--you can get the fuck out of my apartment otherwise."
"I'm making you coffee," the man informs with wild, sweet menace. Kindness. Between friends. He unfolds, leaning to brace his own arms wide against the sink's edge, sympathy carved deep on the hard face. "Everyone needs coffee to start out a productive day of black, malevolent evil-doing. It's the American way. Coffee, morning paper, then chaos."
I am amused by this last pose. 'wild, sweet menace.' Sometimes the words work for me. Usually, I have to work for them. Rossi provides the tally, then fills each one in turn: coffee, morning paper, chaos. I seem to recall having a flashback to the Percy/Shaw breaking log, which explains the word choice in the pose. Another image of Leah's that I enjoyed: the ugly, squashed pink worm.
The more Leah tries to drive Rossi away, the more he, well, stays, because he is bloody-minded and tenacious in a truly inconsistent way. If they were actually dating in the normal sense of the word, it would succeed without question. Since they are not, and Leah is so blatant about trying to push everyone away: he sticks around. Men. They never seem to do the right thing at the right time. Somewhere along the line, Rossi gets fixated on the notion of feeding her breakfast.
Like any Italian, he associates high drama with food. Emo? Eat. Food is an accessory which, like black, goes with everything. In the meantime, it also gives his hands something to do. If he is cooking, he cannot be tempted to throw something at Leah's head. This only works until he has a cup of scalding hot coffee in his fist, at which point all bets are out the window. The real reason, however, is more simplistic. Stupid goop that he is, Rossi really does have (unacknowledged and conflicted) feelings for Leah. Making her breakfast is about one of the only ways that he can take care of her, and so that's what he does -- without, mind you, having any real understanding that that's why he's doing it.
Leah jerks away from the counter. "Asshole," she snarls and stalks away, fists tight at her sides.
The kitchen breathes in. Exhales coffee. Wonders, nicely, "Want some toast?"
Never trust Rossi when he does anything nicely. He does not do things nicely. Or kindly. Usually, it's an overlay for something nowhere near as innocuous.
"I want," Leah grits through her teeth, "to kill you, as I said. Get out of here, Rossi. Go."
"I'll take that as a yes," decides Rossi, and in short order, the toaster's metallic chitter announces it has been set. A cupboard bangs; ceramic clinks against the counter. "So what's the story?" he wonders more lazily, baritone coaxed into conversational timbres. "Do the Friends have some sort of hold on you? Threaten you? Your family? What?"
Nothing quite so maddening as a man who blithely ignores you when you're trying to talk to him. His first guess, ironically the most accurate, is a flippant one, and not meant terribly seriously. It is, after all, such a melodramatic possibility; it's actually meant as mockery more than actual fact-finding. At this point, Rossi is inclined to think that this is a backlash of fear on Leah's part, based on Zoe's injury of Aaron; that given time, space, and a lot of reasoned, intelligent argument by yours truly, she will be brought to see reason. Don't laugh. He is capable of enlightened discussion. He was, after all, trained by Jesuits. Once upon a time.
Leah turns on a slow, dug-in heel. She informs him coldly, "I am not a member of the Friends of Humanity."
So. The smell of toast twines lovingly around coffee; the refrigerator bangs more sharply than its wont, rattling glass in its slam. "Okay," Rossi says agreeably, while metal crashes on the stove. More glass tinkles; a drawer's scrape exhumes a fork. Scrambled eggs. "They've got to be breaking some kind of truth in advertising law with that name. You think? 'Friends of Humanity' my ass. So you're not a member. But they bring you in to interview the people they've kidnapped. What is that, professional courtesy?"
It's an old interview trick. Don't answer the question you're asked. Answer the question you wish you'd been asked. However, doing that betrays other things, doesn't it? Chief among them, that you don't want to answer the question you've been asked. That only works as long as the other person isn't willing to ask the question again, and latch on to demanding an answer, a la Danny Concannon. Give Chris a moment. He'll get back to it.
Breakfast is such an olfactory experience. Coffee, toast, eggs, bacon: it's such a comfort meal for Chris, whose mother always made sure they had a hearty breakfast before shoving them out the door to face the real world. Hidden in the kitchen as he is, it's sound and smell that constitute his presence, and that convey his irritation. The smells speak of affection (loving, something that he is inherently incapable of admitting aloud) while the non-vocal noises attest to his temper. This is one of those physical moments that I enjoy, where one sense claims one thing, and another claims something different: body language proving that words are a lie, for instance. In this case, scent over sound.
I digress for a moment to rave a little. This is one of the wonderful things about give and take in RP, the ability or the willingness to trust your RP partner enough to expose what's going on inside the character, knowing (or believing) that your partner will not take these exposures the wrong way: i.e. exploit them in an unbelievable, artificial manner for their own IC or OOC ends. Exposure of your own character's inner workings should, if the RP partnership is equal, add depth and substance to the entire scene. Even if your partner doesn't exploit it, at the very least you know you're making an impact, and that you are RPing with, not to an actual person behind the character, one who's reacting emotionally and viscerally to your work. Not through meta, necessarily -- though xmm_summers and xmm_percy, for instance, have this way with meta that just blows my mind -- but through word choice, through pose, through posture, through intonation and timbre. This is the point of writing physical poses, as opposed to just vocalizations: emotional, mental, imagined substance.
Leah shakes with the intensity of her fist-clenching. It ripples her voice with a false waver, since her expression is perfectly set and her gaze perfectly steady. "I don't know what you're talking about, and I'm not going to talk about it without a lawyer present."
See what I mean? In her pose, you have a lie, belied.
And I mention, since I am in this train of thought anyway, that RP chemistry is one of those things that rarely just happen. Precious though mine is with Leah's player, it's one that's built up over time, and interaction, and communication. It takes work, though once it's there, yowzah. Glorious, fantastic stuff. Okay. Enough with the love-fest. Moving on....
Eggs crack, and are beaten. With prejudice. "You've already forgotten?" marvels Chris from the kitchen, and tips to crane through the breakfast nook, eyes wide and mocking. "There was a newspaper article with your name on it just the other day. What, four days ago. 'Leah Canto,' it said. --Maybe the Times misunderstood."
A pause. "Rossi." Soft. "Chris." Softer. "Please leave me alone. Put the eggs down and leave. Please."
The rattle of egg-beating silences. "Leah." Soft. "Not going to happen." Softer. "Not until you tell me what's going on."
Leah noted in her commentary of this log that this is one of those give-and-take moments, where I pick up her pose and throw it back at her. I say, apropos, that what it really is is an indication that I've actually read her pose. You'd be surprised how often I don't read other people's poses. Skim, yes. Read, no. It is a bad habit, and one that I am working on, but I confess quite readily that sometimes real life distraction gets in the way. I have found that there are some RPers whose poses I actually read, without fail, and I have tied it into (1) my respect for their writing; (2) my respect for their RPing; (3) my respect for their players; (4) my interest in the scene.
If you pay attention, it's surprisingly easy to recognize which players actually read your poses.
"I have nothing to say to you," Leah says stiffly and sits down on the couch. Her back thus to him, she puts her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands.
"That's okay," Rossi says -- threatens -- with a return to normalcy, such as it is. The toaster clanks in victory; the hiss of eggs meeting skittle dulls the baritone voiceover. "I can just talk and you can listen. You want butter on your toast?"
So terribly, terribly domestic of them. Do you want sugar in your coffee, honey? No thanks, love. Can I take this baseball bat and bludgeon you over the head? Sure, why not? Could you bring me some more toast, while you're at it? Anything you like, sugar plum.
Rossi is off-stage, as it were, and so I pose that way for Leah's perspective: no visuals, only a continuation of sound and ominously absent fury.
Leah rubs the heel of one hand across her eye, then repeats the process on the other side. "No. I'm not hungry. Not even for a last meal, thanks. Do I get a cigarette, too?"
In answer, plates clatter and the kitchen sizzles. A few moments of blessed muteness (opinions hoard themselves behind will, beating restless, anxious wings against gritted teeth) and then Rossi is back in the living room at last, bearing bounty: plates of toast and eggs; mugs of hot, black coffee. "Here," he says, neutral. "Get some caffeine in you."
Anxiety has that feel, fluttering around in the pit of your stomach. Opinions born of anxiety are, I imagine, much the same way, although they're ready to come out and play in the real world, barring restraint. Contrary to popular opinion, Rossi has some. It's not time to fight with, or to dig. He's already had his first cup and meal of the day, and an obscure instinct for fair play (it isn't an actual police interrogation, after all) not to mention respect for Leah, prompts him to bring her up to par with him before he brings out the rubber hose. Big brother Chris, taking care of her -- neutral, asexual, will not be distracted by sex again -- except there's nothing brotherly about it, is there? Poor, stupid, willfully blind Rossi.
Leah jags a laugh. "Before you drag me downtown?"
"You said you weren't one of the Friends," reminds Chris, depositing his burden on the coffee table before claiming a mug for himself. He stands over her, considering. "You lying to me?"
Leah shakes her head, looking at plate and mug. "I don't want to go downtown," she tells him with the frayed edge of humor. "Lying to the police is bad. Even if everyone does it."
Bad, mouths Rossi, an unseen glitter of matching humor dawning, however grudgingly. "So," he says. And again: "How'd you get mixed up in the Friends?"
There's something very little girl lost about what Leah says. Don't lie to the police! Shades of parents teaching their children, mantras learned by rote until they become articles of faith. It amuses Chris, who remembers his own indoctrination as a youth. Amusement doesn't soften him, however. 'Glittering' is a deliberate word choice, to counteract the 'dawning.'
"I'm /not,/ dammit. I just write ... articles. Advocating freedom of expression -- you hear of that?" Sullenly Leah transfers her plate from coffee table to knees and stabs at inoffensive eggs. "Two sides to every story. I'm doing the other side, to balance all this shiny-happy 'we love mutants!' crap."
"Except the Friends aren't the /other side/, Canto," says Rossi with heavy-voiced reason, planting a hand on the sofa's back to lean. "That's like saying al-Qaeda's the other side of democracy. So tell me, how'd you get involved with the /Friends/?"
Er. I think I used the al-Qaeda spelling from CNN. This particular ludicrous line of reasoning comes from a relatively weak West Wing episode response to 9/11. As I recall, it wasn't one of Aaron Sorkin's best. However, I must occasionally make a nod to the show, simply to drive xmm_percy crazy. Even if this reference wasn't, well, obvious.
Despite all his conscious and unconscious attempts at evening the board before they get into it, Rossi can't help but utilize that body language he uses in the interrogation room. They've become habit now, dangerously so. He stands over her. He leans into her. He looms a little, exploiting his greater bulk and physical presence in private just as he does in public.
Leah mutters, "The hell I will," and shovels breakfast into her mouth.
Wonders Chris, grim, "Why not? They got something on you, don't they? Who'd they target? Your family?"
...and there that question is again. She didn't answer it the first time. He's not stupid, he's familiar with that trick. Now that she's got some food and drink her, he asks it again, challenges her to answer it, no matter how stupid and silly it sounds as a premise.
Leah chews and swallows. She picks up her coffee and has a swallow. She puts the mug back on the table. She carves off another bite of eggs and downs it. She does not, under any circumstance, look at her interrogator.
"That's it, isn't it?" The coffee, forgotten entirely, lowers. Rossi's shadow pitches, creeping across Leah's back. "They're threatening your family."
Looooooom. Threat for threat -- although it isn't meant that way, except perhaps from Leah's perspective. Possessive, in a sense. Protective, certainly. Her lack of answer is answer enough, and the most ridiculous and idiotic of suppositions becomes, instead, abrupt certainty. She's being threatened, and every protective instinct in Chris instantly wakes up and snarls.
"Don't be ridiculous," Leah says in a low voice as she stares at the coffee mug on the coffee table and eats her eggs. "You've seen too many movies."
The baritone says over a current of cynicism, "You mean the kind where there are superheroes and supervillains and people have magic powers?" Arms fold; Rossi stoops to lean over them, head dropping black and intimate over Leah's shoulder. His voice softens, quiet. "Welcome to New York City, 2005. We can get them into protection, Canto."
I've mentioned before that Chris uses his voice, too, and intimacy: serpent in Eve's ear, though marginally more benevolent than that original article. (Although I've always wondered if the serpent in Eden didn't have the best interests of Adam and Eve in mind. I mean, until they got kicked out of the Garden, the pair of them must have been fantastically dull.) That warm, deep voice murmuring in your ear, his presence at your back, just over your shoulder, his body heat prickling against your throat -- he violates as much as he seduces and coaxes, exploiting a keen awareness of personal space. Her personal space.
Leah's body shakes. Grimly she keeps eating. "Back off, Rossi."
"All of them," says Rossi, cajoling, coaxing, the serpent at Eve's breast. His breath tickles her ear, stirring the sensitive hairs at her nape. Memories of tenderness, subverted to purpose. "Your mother, your sister -- you know they killed one of the cops at the Purity rally."
Hah. And I even use the serpent reference in the next pose. I even write out what he's doing: memories of tenderness, subverted to purpose. If you ask him, he claims to make a distinction between personal and professional. The reality is, he's never not a cop, and the converse is as true: he's never not himself. Off-duty and on-duty are illusory fabrications, instituted for his own sanity. Shared moments of tenderness between them are ruthlessly wielded against her, emotional and physical blackmail -- for her own good! -- to get to the truth.
"One of my Uncle Jerry's boys. I know." Leah slides down the couch away from him. Her shoulders are still trembling, but she's still chewing eggs. "I went to the memorial service. It was nice."
"I was there." Treacherous Chris, voice nudging against her awareness, stroking lightly at the threads of conscience and morality. Coffee-warmed fingers touch that line of throat, brushing into the pulse beneath the skin. "Lots of dead. I probably would've been one of them, you think? Friends' bullet, Brotherhood bullet -- what's the difference?"
Treacherous SOB. He remembers her mentioning that she might be in love with him, though he prudently (cravenly!) says nothing about it. But that doesn't mean he won't try to use it to his advantage. Pluck that heartstring, if it's there. Play on the pulse, that vulnerable little reminder of life.
Leah says flatly, "No difference. Dead is dead. Isn't that what you always say? I'll go to your funeral, too. Dance at your wake."
A pause. Unseen, a muscle jerks in Chris's jaw. "You really believe the shit the Friends believe in?"
Well ... shit. Didn't work. Remove yourself a little, grow a little remote, because somewhere there is a little pang that it didn't work. So maybe she doesn't care. We will not acknowledge that it hurt, just a tiny bit. Not that we want Leah in love with us. That would be inconvenient. Uncomfortable. Awkward. Right. Let's be reasonable about this.
Eggs are done. Plate's on the table. Leah picks up her coffee and walks away from him, to the windows, and stands and sips and looks out. "Someone has to speak for them," she says, still without inflection. "Are you really surprised?"
"Yeah," says Rossi, frankly. "I am. I have a hard time believing you're that stupid."
Leah snorts into her mug. "No, you're not. You've never thought that much of me. I was Gabe's girlfriend, remember?"
"That was then. This is now. /Dammit/, Leah--" Frustration roils, slipping its leash for a moment. Is bitten back. Reason is the way to go. "Are you out of your fucking mind?"
Okay. That ... might not have sounded like the voice of reason. Oops.
Leah has a way of pushing his buttons that few others can. She walks away from him, deliberately distancing herself. Another small pang. The reminder of Gabe is a deeper dig. There's so much wrapped up in that one little name: his fraternal guilt over stepping into his brother's turf; his unacknowledged resentment that Leah was with him before she was with Chris -- not, mind you, that he has any particularly possessive feelings towards Leah. REALLY. Oddly, he has no negative feelings whatsoever about her relationship with, say, Aaron Grossman, which says as much about Aaron's charming harmlessness as it does about Chris's feelings about Gabe. Nothing like family to fuck you up.
I have never had opportunity to be sure, but I think Chris's spectacular relationship failures with previous girlfriends were due, in part, to the fact that he has a strongly possessive streak without the natural jealousy that should go with it. He does not have insecurity of that sort, perhaps because he's never really been seriously in love. Anger, yes. Jealousy -- a fear of losing the other person -- never. It's either colossal arrogance and self-confidence, or a lack of emotional investment. I suspect it's more the latter than the former; while Chris is certainly mature enough for most things, when it comes to romantic relationships, he has an emotional immaturity that should thoroughly screw him over when the right (or wrong) woman comes along.
With a calm look back at him, composed and wan, Leah sips coffee. "Maybe. Why do you care? Do your job or leave me alone. I told you already."
Teeth show white. "Convenient peace and quiet," says Rossi, straightening to skirt around the sofa's edge and sink a hip on its arm. "Prefer not to have people pointing out that what you're doing is insane?"
Leah shrugs and returns to watching the day outside her apartment. "I don't care what they say. I'm doing my job, and I'm doing a good job of it. What else matters?"
"They're /terrorists/, Canto," bites Rossi, temper flaring again to skew patience. "Fucking /terrorists/. They kidnapped the guy. --You could get thrown in jail for being an accessory to a crime, goddammit."
Terrorism should mean something special to Leah, as it does to Rossi, as it does to any native New Yorker, particularly one born and bred in the NYPD mold. The word and association with the word has its own connotations of being beyond the pale, past redemption; the possible personal consequences are almost an afterthought, the slightly ridiculous 'and by the way' that is, in its own way, almost an anticlimax.
Leah swallows, but keeps her voice steady. "Well, then I will. Journalists have done time before, and maybe I'll get a great expose out of it. You never know! Gotta look on the bright side, Rossi."
Anger, rarely distant, fans itself hot in the green eyes. Deliberate, careful, Rossi plants his mug on the coffee table, out of reach. Out of use. "You're pissing me off," he informs, Brooklyn-harsh. "What is this bullshit? You're not this stupid. You're not this ... goddammit, you're not this /stupid/. Don't tell me you're just doing it for the money, because I've seen you turn shit away for fucking /principles/."
So tempting to throw that coffee, to hurl it right at that maddening head. I mentioned as much to Leah's player, OOCly, and she said that she expected it at any moment. You see? Rossi has restraint! He puts the mug down. He does not believe Leah has been bought with anything as simple as money. There's a strain of idealism in both of them, and like recognizes like, however warped it may be in both their sad, twisted psyches...
"It's damned good money," muses Leah as she breathes across the top of her gently steaming mug. "And I got to be on Larry King Live. Me. All by myself. Never had /that/ happen before. He's a nice guy, you know? Even if the suspenders are now and always have been and always will be entirely too much. Silly old man."
"Is it the fucking /fame/?" rasps Rossi, incredulous for a split second before belief, more terrible, sweeps it away. "That's what they got you with? Putting you in the spotlight, getting the offers, having the exclusive?"
...on the other hand, he can believe fame. He knows that Achilles' heel of the reporter, that desire for the scoop, that ravening after a story and the byline and the front page story. He's been the victim of it before -- the aftermath of the Miller case, among other red ticket cases, was made notable and wretched by the press. Fame is not a pull he has ever felt, being more prone to curse its interference in his work and personal life than not. (The reprecussions of fame in the precinct are, as ever, brutal and hilarious. His fellow cops are quick-witted and razor-tongued, and not likely to forgive or forget a man's 15 minutes.) Rossi's weaknesses and temptations are the same that Beston fell to, originally: cutting corners, corrupting evidence, pushing a little too hard and too fast. Good intentions paving the road to hell.
Leah angles a beatific smile over her shoulder. "It's just delightful to hear how well you think of me, Chris. Maybe you should just leave me as your whore and have done with it."
Again the muscle jumps, sharp-etched against the skin. "Nice try, Canto, but I've been related to Gabe longer than you've dated him. You're out of your league, if you're thinking of pushing me off. Tell me /why/."
She so is, too. Gabe is the master manipulator. Leah? Grasshopper. She was well out of that relationship. Chris isn't so lucky.
Grimacing, Leah turns to sit on the sill. She daintily fluffs her robe across her legs and then sets the mug alongside her seat. "Or else?" she says, and some black memory whispers in her voice and peers out of her bleak eyes.
Or /else/. Rossi straightens on a hasty jerk, and strides at Leah to slam his arm into the wall beside her. Temper roils, barbed; hurt crouches behind its shield, bleeding. "I don't want to end up taking you downtown, Canto. --Dammit, Leah. Tell me you're the victim here." Almost a plea.
Don't like that pose. Bad, especially since I duplicated a phrase from before (temper roils). The part about the crouching, bleeding hurt isn't awful, though was a little too much emotional exposure in the pose. Oh well. It refers in part to the last log with Leah, which was -- I think -- the two of them getting drunk. Rossi shared a little too much about his brothers, and so here we go: young, battered, idealistic Chris, crouched behind the armor of his temper and immediate violence.
Leah looks up at him. A smile teases at her mouth. "You want to save me?" She runs a hand down his front, pensively watching fingers' glide, and looks up again. No smile now. "Knight in shining armor?"
"Fuck you," snaps Chris, bending into his arm -- into that hand's caress -- before catching her fingers in his. Squeezes. Gentles, with a forced press of will. "Tell me why you're helping them."
That touch. Leah's player loved it. So did I. She regarded it as without sensuality or sexuality, I seem to recall. To Rossi, everything is sensual, because he is ultimately a physical beast: hence the constant struggle to wield reason instead of other weapons in his arsenal; hence his general failure whenever he tries. (This might not entirely be his fault. Humanity is not, by nature, rational.) Something about the touch speaks to him, some suspicion of mockery, or desperation, or farewell, and so he catches her hand so the touch can't end, so she can't use it to say good-bye. If you never close your eyes, tomorrow can't come. It's such a childish, forlorn, hopeless attempt.
He believes that she's being threatened. He is almost convinced. But he can't do anything, because she refuses to acknowledge it or ask for his help. His options are limited; he can't pull in the resources at his disposal, not in the way that he wants, because she won't give him the opening he needs to go back to his superiors.
"I think," Leah says quietly but clearly, "that I should have an attorney present. I really do." She worms her hand free and presents both of them to him, wrists pressed together, waiting only for the cuffs. Her eyes are simmering, shimmering pools of old-leaf brown.
Chris stills. Regards her with shadowed, hungry eyes. "Don't do this."
Another pose that could have been so much better, but wasn't. Her body language asks to be arrested, putting them, effectively, on opposite sides of the fence. Not allies, but enemies: cop, suspect; law, terrorist.
Leah bites her lip. "I have to," she whispers. "Enough people have died, haven't they?" Her arms stay out, but they shake. They shake.
"They're threatening you," Chris murmurs back. Catches up one of those hands again -- binds its wrist with his strong, strong hand -- to press a desperate kiss against its fingers.
And, abruptly, the player realized that Chris is actually in love with Leah. It's hidden way down deep, absolutely unacknowledged. Of course now is when I get to make this discovery, at the worst possible time. Goddamn character. He captures an offered wrist with his hand, warmer than handcuffs and less official; at the same time, more binding, for him as well as for her, though he doesn't know it yet.
Blood trickles down Leah's chin. "I can't -- I can't talk -- Christ, Chris, you /know/ -- if I /say/ anything--"
"I'll help you," Rossi promises, reckless knight. Matching hurt catches at his breath; he drops to his haunches, a thumb warm and rough against the ribbon of red. "Don't do that. /Leah/. We'll put your family in protection--"
It's almost an admission that she needs help. He'll take it. He moves on it instantly, pushing her towards action and solution, all the things that he can provide. He's on the cusp of commitment, and absolutely ready to take that leap. Reckless, when it comes to the people he cares about. (He knows he is, but for some reason this doesn't make him sit up and realize that he has feelings for her. Because, oh, he is so blind.)
"No." Leah wrenches her head away from his touch, collects her hand again, hugs herself. "Chris, I can't say anything to you," she says to the dining table across the apartment, where she's looking and looking /hard./ "I can't, and I won't. Stop pushing me. Stop /pushing/ me!" Hysteria wends urgent through her voice, like the dribble of lip-bitten blood.
The green eyes chill behind the sweep of lashes, speculation (suspicion) sweeping across the apartment and its innocence. "It's okay, Canto," Rossi says in an abrupt about-face, dropping next to the woman to wind his arm around her shoulder. Reels in, determined. "I won't push. Look. I'm not pushing. Calm down."
Abrupt reversal. That edge of hysteria, and Leah is so strong, and it shocks him a little, like a splash of water in the face. Why won't she tell him? Perhaps because she's being monitored even in her apartment. Just like -- hah -- a movie. Then again, he's been on the listening side of surveillance before, so why not? Why shouldn't someone be listening? Deadly and dangerous, if so. He backs off verbally, even as he pulls in, physically: again, a lie and a truth at the same time.
Leah balls up her fist and pounds his shoulder. Just once, and softly. "Dammit," she despairs. "Why does everyone have to push? And push and push and-- I'm just doing my job! I'm doing my job! I'm reporting, and I'm getting paid for it, and I have new agents and a bodyguard and--" And hiccup. And tremors.
"Just following orders," says Chris in grave, biting mockery -- and then remembers a second later and atones, apologetic. "I didn't mean that. Shh. Leah." Grudging compassion wraps its sheath around his voice, dulling its edge; the arm tightens, contracting into Rossi comfort, Rossi security. Quiet, subdued, he says, "I'm sorry. You know what you're doing, I guess."
Flailing Leah instantly brings out the protective side of him, and in light of his new suspicion, he overreacts in the other direction by heading straight to mockery: that same instinct that she has thrown in his face and hated on him for, more than once. He forces his more sympathetic reaction, when his first and most urgent desire is to get her out of there so he can push some more and get her to safety. Once more, he lies. He absolutely does not believe she knows what she's doing, and he will protect her despite herself. He will!
Leah hits harder. "This isn't fucking Nuremberg," she snarls.
"You're with a group that's talking genocide," Chris snaps back, unable, unwilling to hold his tongue. "Thin end of the wedge, Canto. You think-- never mind." And so much for comfort.
Leah shoves her head into his shoulder now. Canto stubbornness, Canto pigheadedness. "I'm not talking genocide. I'm not /with/ them. I'm /not./"
So damn cute, shoving her head into his shoulder. (Ahem.) It's a gesture I've seen small children do with their parents, burrowing for comfort, and matched with the wail of repetition -- Am not! Am not! -- there's this image of Father Chris again, rough and tumble love. All good intentions aside, he cannot quite let go of this bone. He's a poor actor when it isn't his job, and even when it comes down to playing a perp or a witness, it's always him, good cop or bad cop. There's theater in him, but no acting.
"You're preaching their word," Rossi says grimly, (and so much for silence and understanding.) "You're /spreading/ it. Helping them look like reasonable people so they can shove the shit they do under the carpet. Kidnapping. Murder. A dead /cop/."
"I didn't kill a cop!" Leah wails softly.
"You're an accessory to /kidnapping/," Chris reminds, bruising. "It's only a matter of /time/."
Leah breathes, "No," fervently, hotly, and whips her head through a negatory shake. "I had no idea what was going on with Dr. Grey. Before, during, after -- /nothing./ Any defense lawyer would have it thrown out of court for lack of a prima facie case. I'm doing my /job./" She clings to that, even as she clings to him.
Chris squeezes, a little harder, a little fiercer: angrily, (protectively, possessively) -- "A /crime/," he says with bitter emphasis. "A harmless old guy who gets traumatized, whose family gets to be terrorized, just because -- what, exactly? You /knew/ the guy'd been kidnapped, you knew who had them. Why the fuck didn't you say something, Canto?"
How he hates hearing justifications, excuses, 'I didn't know,' 'I didn't want to interfere,' 'I didn't think it was any of my business.' He hears it so often on his job from people who didn't step in, didn't report it: neighbors of abusive husbands and parents, witnesses who didn't look out the window, people who stood around and averted their eyes. It's the New York way, but he hates it so much, and hearing it from Leah just fans the flames of his already leaping temper.
Leah lifts her head and asks bitterly, "Who was I going to tell? You? Lazzaro? And watch you happy bastards plunge in where you shouldn't and get shot down for your noble pains."
"God/da/-- Christ, Canto. What do you think this is, some kind of movie?" Exasperation hinges Chris's sweep up, the jerk of head that breezes black hair and flames the green eyes. "Believe it or not, the NYPD's got /people/ for this kind of shit. Give us a little credit for being professionals."
Reference: movie. Leah's commentary notes she's working off a script, and Chris is not. In the movies, the noble hero is in from the beginning and handles everything, even the storming of the Citadel of Evil. Rossi, not being an idiot, calls the SWAT. See? He's got an instinct for self-preservation. If nothing else, he's practical. Guys in gear with big guns, headsets, and training, will be a lot more useful on an extraction than Rossi and his bullet-proof-like-saran-wrap suit and tie.
There's something to be said for professionalism.
She cringes, but doesn't back down. "I'm not talking about it anymore." Leah stonewalls instead. Again; some more. "Give /me/ the same credit. It's my profession. It's my life. Things are quiet now, aren't they? So."
"It never stays quiet," says Chris, prophetic and far-eyed Cassandra. "So the rally's over. What's the next thing? Who's the next person they decide to shut up?"
This is a jab at some earlier comment of hers, that the Friends deserve to have a voice. In theory, Rossi does not object to this too much -- except in the dark certainty that they are fucking terrorists, and should be shot through the head, which would negate the need for vocalizing of ANY sort -- but why should they deserve to have a voice when they insist on being the only voice? He hurls that back at her, mocking her tenets of freedom of the press.
Leah looks at him. "Me, probably."
Rossi bruises in earnest, one hand convulsing around a wrist. "/Leah/."
As much as he's been thinking it, hearing it is something else, and Rossi's reaction is immediate. It's as much fear as it is fury. Watching someone go to the devil willfully and willingly is so annoying. A half-breath before, she's talking like a rational person, justifying herself and them, and then she turns around a second later and pulls this shit. Damn woman.
A sob, twisted out of her like the last spoonful of water from a worn, dirty dishrag. "/Stop/ it. Stop it! Let me go, Rossi!"
Belatedly realizing, muscles relax, manacles loosening and falling away: from wrist, from shoulders. "Do you have some kind of death wish?" Rossi demands, baritone cresting towards anger again, breaking past unease. "What the fuck is /wrong/ with you?"
See above for my raves about Leah's use of language. Worn, dirty dishrag. So descriptive, and so apt. Spoon. (The Tick thoughts, referenced two poses later by me and moths.) He knows his own strength, because he's had accidents with it -- when it first materialized; he was a late and sudden bloomer -- and so he judges it to a nicety, except when he's upset. When he's really upset, as opposed to the dramatics that come with being the Big Bad Cop. I mentioned in a different commentary that Chris has a morbid horror of becoming his older brothers, with their emotional and physical abuse. He bruises her in earnest, and later (when she shows him) will feel real guilt about it, together with an acid taste of fear that he did it to someone he cares about.
Leah cradles her wrist and glares at him with rheumy eyes. "What, before or after a member of the New York Police Department assaulted me?"
The green-eyed gaze settles like moth wings on Leah's wrist, fleeting and light, before swinging back to the woman's face. "Jesus, Mary and Joseph," Chris breathes, making the names a curse -- and jerks upright to stalk away, punishing the floor for its mistress's failings.
Sabbath reference again. Leah returns to the Church in an attempt to absolve and punish herself; Rossi returns to the Church to punish her, defiling sanctity. Hers, that is. Going back to the Church, my ass. And now he knows why, too.
Gingerly Leah resettles on the windowsill. She even picks up her coffee for a swallow (and a grimace: it's cooled by now). "Blasphemy suits you," she sends after him sarcastically.
The man's very body is an oath, carved out of obscenity and borne in profanity; he excoriates as he moves, snatching the discarded plate and fork from the coffee table to bear it into the kitchen. Things crash, slapping their sharp voiced protest into the sink. "You want a refill?"
Back to the kitchen, and the strands of normalcy. Not that anything about their relationship could be normal; even his grope after domesticity is, in its very attempt, strained and strange. The last physical view of him (for her) is sharp in its description, because once he's in the kitchen there's only sound. The last image of him should be distinct, therefore, and eloquent of his mood. This pose is not so bad, though he forgets the mugs.
"No." Leah rubs her forehead. Sounds tired. "I want to go back to bed and pretend this never happened."
"Bad dream?" asks the kitchen, falsely consoling. "The conversation? Or the Sinn Fein life? --You're not getting rid of me, Canto. I'm not Alyssa, or Melcross."
Leah says sweetly, "Or Gabe."
Something cracks in the kitchen. Water hisses. "Broke a plate," Chris reports, utterly without remorse. "Sorry about the fork. I'll bring some pliers by and fix it later."
That name again. That button. She just has to find that sore spot and PUSH.
"No need. I have pliers. I even know how to use them. Failing that--" Leah shrugs and folds her arms over soft, terryclothed belly "--I have other forks. You wanna ruin more of my stuff, or maybe beat me up some more, go ahead. Do what you have to do, Rossi. It's all any of us can do."
Hidden in the kitchen, Rossi braces his arms wide and slouches between them, head hanging, eyes closed, temper mangled by anxiety. Water whines between them, counterpoint to his silence. "You're making me crazy," he says at last, bland and conversational again. "I can't figure out whether to beat some sense into you, or lock you in a closet to keep you safe."
It's as close as he can come to admitting his feelings for her, from the safe anonymity of the kitchen. She can't see him, but for the players' sakes I did the physical pose: once more the lie behind the voice, which is casual and absent of deep feeling. The urge to beat her is serious, and driving. He does have an element of the abuser in him; that black joy of inflicting physical punishment is always under restraint. He will not become Paul. But oh, the temptation....
Leah croons, "You love me."
No answer. Another crack. "Broke your other plate," says Rossi, almost cheerfully. "I feel better."
Ah. The therapy of destruction. A little light-hearted flip of comedy, to counteract the sturm und drang of earlier. Not deliberate (maybe) but oh, so cathartic.
"My poor plates. Don't make me come over there, asshole."
"They were ugly plates." Heartless Chris. He eyes them thoughtfully; slaps a large fragment against the counter to splinter it in half again. Crash. Tinkle. "You sure you don't want more coffee?"
Leah growls a curse. "Will it make you stop breaking my shit?"
"It's already broken. Do you want more coffee?"
"Breaking more of my shit, then," Leah clarifies angrily. She huffs a breath. "God. Fine. Coffee, yespleasethankyoumisterdetective."
I laughed. Damn Leah's player again. And Rossi stays completely rooted in domesticity, where he is unassailable, untouchable, and absolutely unmovable. Such strange protections we build up around ourselves, when we're hurt and suffering. An entire moat of coffee and toast. And dishwashing.
Detective Rossi stalks out of the kitchen like a rumpled heron, bright-eyed and beady-, coffee carafe in hand. Pours. Glowers at Leah. Stalks back. Announces from that increasingly fractured nest, "Beston's primary on the John Grey kidnapping."
Leah sips. "So he'll be throwing me into the box today. D'you think I have time to get dressed first? I don't want to force you guys to give up a great psychological advantage, but the weather does leave me a little cold these days. Hate to get sick."
"Get dressed," Rossi suggests, over the thunk of plate portions being tossed in the garbage. "We're off until this afternoon."
He punishes her by telling her this, though it might not have been strategic on his part. Now she knows when she'll get pulled in, or at least whenabouts. Better that she not know, so she has that uncertainty to unbalance her, to make her anxious and fray her before they finally show up at the door. Interrogation should become a relief, then, so she's all the more ready to spill what they want to know--
--But on the other hand, now she knows she'll definitely be pulled in, and that she's about to become part of the system that her family works for. She knows what to expect, and when to expect it, and she's on the wrong side. That, too, is terrible, and it's immediate gratification (punishment!) for Chris.
"Thanks," Leah says and pushes off from the sill. Coffee mug goes on coffee table. Robe goes on couch. Naked woman goes in bedroom. And door? Door slams shut.
The sink hisses a few moments longer, exploited for the cleaning of utensils. Chris emerges into the empty living room, leans into the door, and inspects the apartment again: in silence, in deep and hostile suspicion. Straightens. Glances towards the bedroom -- and then stalks out, sweeping the robe with him. Trade for the old newspaper, left glaring on the coffee table: Friends of Humanity Suspected in Cop Death. The door closes, leaving the apartment in relative peace. Quiet guilt. The echoes of argument.
Not one of my best closings, but oh well. The robe infuriates him, so he takes it with her. It might be symbolic of her pretense, her lies, her shell of self-sufficiency and delusions of self-control. I'm inclined to think not. I think, really, he just doesn't like her robe, and is determined to destroy it.
He tosses it down the garbage chute on the way back down to his apartment. A vengeful, impulsive thing to do. People act out in such strange and unfathomable ways.
Journal entry:
I could kill her. I really could. I could beat her to a fucking pulp.
Goddammit, she's terrified. One of the bravest women I know, and she's terrified. They must be monitoring her. I'll talk to Beston. Get Eccles on her.
Time to hunt some Friends.
Then the journal entry, written -- as usual -- in a paper medium. Rossi is not prone to writing down the fullness of his thoughts, one way or another; not given to a great deal of introspection or navel-gazing, he vents his thoughts as he has them, without doing a great deal in the way of analysis or review. In the wake of the encounter, he is angry at Leah, furious at the Friends, suspicious of surveillance in Leah's apartment, and absolutely ready to go forth and fight some dragons. Poor Chris.
Until he's sure there're no taps in Leah's apartment, she's so not getting booty there again.