tampered | Log; Completed

Log; Completed

When; Sunday afternoon, 3:00
Rating; G
Characters; Vicious (

notapreacher)
Summary; They don't really qualify as old friends, but it's a meeting that's long overdue.
Log;

At ten minutes to three, Gren looks at the loaded gun in his hand. It's the Colt, the one he picked up on the rooftop in Callisto, after losing his H&K in the confusion. It's not a handgun he particularly likes, and the fact that it probably belongs to the man he killed doesn't endear it to him either. Vicious's words from last night come back to him: I'm going to ask you go through a metal detector if we're going to sit down for coffee.

For all intents and purposes, Vicious already killed him twice. The first time was the minute he heard who testified against him and the second was up there on the rooftop in Blue Crow. One was figurative and one was literal, but both were... well, he could have done without either of them. He has no idea why he's agreed to this... meeting, this get-together, this bizarre sit-down. But he has, and that's all there is to it. After thinking about it (yes, no, yes, no, flip a coin) he sets the safety on the gun and puts it away.

He's already dead anyway. What's the worst that can happen?

At five minutes to three, he locks his door and steps into the hallway, half expecting to see Vicious waiting there but the hall is empty. With a shrug that's half relieved and half amused, he walks down to the lobby and steps out into the street. Julia and Faye will no doubt berate him later for going out unarmed, but there comes a time when all a man can do is leave things to fate. This is one of those times. Wishing he still smoked, he leans back against the building and looks around, but he doesn't see Vicious anywhere. Maybe he won't show up. Maybe he ought to start walking toward a coffee shop anyway. Or maybe he ought to turn tail, go back upstairs, and barricade himself in his apartment. At least that way he can listen to the clock ticking, let it hypnotize him into thinking he's ever had a shot at normalcy here anyway. Maybe drink himself to sleep.

None of these options are particularly attractive.

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Vicious out and about in the daylight is something of a rarity, these days. He doesn't sleep much, but that's usual - during the waking hours of most humans, he's working in the Underground, or on paperwork, or he's catching those infrequent hours of sleep. There isn't quite enough business in the City to keep him on anything but a nocturnal schedule.

Despite this, he looks as cool and calm as always as he approaches from one side of the building, dressed as impeccable and as elegant as ever. All black and a gunmetal gray coat, he could be a desaturated noir film star with his colorless hair (he hasn't cut it since his arrival, it's longer than Gren would ever remember) and pale eyes.

He stops two meters away from the other man, silent, impassive. Cold.

He feels Vicious before he sees him: he feels his presence in his bones and it makes him shiver and he's not sure what he's even doing here. He has no business being here and no business seeing Vicious and no business taking requests from him. In fact, he has no business doing anything at all with or for him but exacting the revenge he failed to obtain on Callisto.

This is a moment that's been a long time in the making. When he first got here -- wherever this place really is -- he thought that if he ever saw Vicious face to face, he'd strangle him. Just like that: messy and painful and probably fatal again for both of them. While time hasn't mellowed his anger and resentment, life in this city's changed his priorities. He likes his job; he needs his hands. If he destroys them by trying to strangle Vicious, he puts himself out of a job.

That might just be an excuse, though: his eyes narrow and his brows furrow and he turns in the direction of the man he's been dreading to confront and secretly aching to see for years: he's at a loss for words. All he can do is look and take him in. Vicious is as gray and emotionless as ever and it takes all the self-control he can muster to shove away every bit of emotion he feels. None of it's allowed to show on his face.

Gren's lack of reaction speaks just as much, if not more, than a violent one would have. A shadow of emotion flickers across Vicious' face: sadistic amusement.

He raises one hand and indicates behind him, toward the square, toward the nearest little coffee house.

"Shall we?"

Why? It's the same question he's been asking himself ever since he spoke with Vicious, but... if he reminds himself to breathe, then he can do this and get through it. What do you do when you don't know if you want to kill someone or kiss them?

Pretend they don't matter, and that's exactly what he does now.

"Sure." Hands in his pockets -- again, not such a smart move, but he's fallen short on that so many times he's stopped counting -- he falls into step beside his former higher-ranking officer. In his mind, Vicious has always been larger than life and it surprises him now as it did on Titan to find himself the taller of the two.

"I'm not packing anything, in case you were wondering." He'd rather not be frisked to prove the point.

"I wasn't."

In truth, he didn't care. Gren could shoot at him all he liked - he was still faster, stronger, and more reckless. Even if Gren hit him, and managed to kill him, he'd just come back the next day, find him, torture him, and then keep him alive for a week and do it again. And he wouldn't flinch at all.

Vicious was bored. He wasn't satisfied. The Valentine woman didn't hold any interest now that Spike was gone. Not even torturing Shira had been a respite from the irritating stagnancy of City unlife.

He pulled open the door to the coffee house, polite.

This is... so weird. For a minute he hesitates at the door, wondering if he should make a run for it. But that would be stupid: Vicious knows where he lives, knows where he works, and worse still, knows who his friends are. He hasn't exactly been the soul of discretion at this place.

It isn't like he has a whole lot of concern about himself, though; taking in a deep breath he walks through the door and finds an empty table, nods to it.

Vicious moves with an odd proud grace: he remembers that from Titan. He used to think that somewhere inside there was so much beauty being held at bay. Now he's not so sure. Oh, he's got questions. A metric ton of questions... but today might not be the day to ask them. He's tried forcing the issue before and that went over so, so well.

He still remembers looking down after coughing to find blood all over his hand. Everything after that was simple inevitability.

Vicious tends not to take well to people forcing him to do anything. His name isn't for show. It's earned, through blood and politics. If Gren had pulled a stunt similar to the one on Callisto - well. The reaction would have been interesting, at least.

He quietly signals for a waitress, and makes a smooth-voiced request for himself - just coffee - even giving her a polite, slightly suggestive look. She blushes before turning to take Gren's order, and Vicious watches him.

"Green tea, please. Black." He doesn't need to meet Vicious's eyes to know he's being scrutinized: of course he is. The last time they met, he tried to kill Vicious.

Then again, it went both ways. There was a bomb in the suitcase with the Titan opal, and he certainly expected that. As the waitress acknowledges his order -- still blushing from that look Vicious gave her -- and moves off, he takes his turn watching Vicious.

There's no conversation at first, but he didn't put himself in this situation to drink tea with Vicious and not say anything. It's just that he doesn't know where to start. The man has to absolutely hate him, and by all rights he ought to absolutely hate Vicious in turn. And he does... but he doesn't. He wants to, but he... can and can't. He hates what Vicious did to him, but this is the same man who saved his life on Titan.

There's so much he doesn't understand.

"Did you..."

No, he can't ask about that yet; he doesn't want to talk about prison or about Titan or about betrayal or about expectations, right or wrong. That will have to wait.

"...I played that song last night." It was wedged into the middle of the third set and there was no fanfare, no announcement, nothing noteworthy about it other than the fact that he played it fairly decently. He's got a soft spot for Ella.

"I heard."

He doesn't give his opinion. Vicious is the picture of ease as he sits across from the other man; relaxed but not slouching, graceful without being timid. Anyone else would look overdressed - somehow he manages to make the rest of the cafe look shabby. It's got nothing to do with what he's wearing, if you looked past the surface. He was practiced at seeming to own whatever room he walked into.

He gives the waitress another almost-smile as their drinks arrive. And still, he doesn't engage Gren in conversation, despite having suggested this meeting. He sips the hot coffee, watching the musician through the steam, pale eyes unblinking.

Two can play the silence game. It makes for a boring coffee shop conversation, but he's made his mistakes and he'd like to leave them on Callisto where they belong. The teacup warms his hands -- they're chronically chilly nowadays -- and helps ground him a little bit.

What does Vicious want with him now? He won't find out by staring at him and he won't find out by trying to one-up him: he'll always cave first. He's definitely the softer of the two and until he knew Vicious -- well, until he joined the Army -- that was never a weakness.

One of them is going to have to break the silence, and he knows who it will be. It's inevitable.

"Is there something you wanted from me, or were you just in the mood for coffee and the usual suspects were too busy to join you?"

Predictable.

He almost smiles.

Wordless, Vicious reaches into a breast pocket and takes out a semi-transparent orange plastic cylinder with a printed prescription label on the side. He sets it on the table. It's a heavy duty anti-anxiety drug, and the emotionless black typeface on the label declares that it's meant to be treating Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, and it was issued out to one Doe, John.

He still doesn't say anything. Vicious is taking a risk, showing him this. It's obviously his, not something he's offering. He isn't going to give Gren anything else to go on before he musters up a reaction - Vicious plays his hand close to his chest, as he always does, when it concerns himself personally.

That near smile on Vicious's face doesn't match his actions; Gren doesn't even try to mask his curiosity now as he watches his companion. Once the prescription vial's down on the table he reaches for it and reads the label, wondering for a moment why Vicious has chosen to show this to him.

He hands the pill bottle back: does Vicious think he's to blame for this in some way? Is that why the information is being shared?

There's really only one thing to say.

"You too?"

And that's really all the confirmation he needs. He suspected, even assumed - Gren is weaker than he is. If he was taken ill by the things they were put through, surely the other man was, too. Vicious picks up the bottle and returns it to his pocket, sitting back in his chair and sipping his coffee, mug in both hands.

After a while, he speaks, his deep voice the same flat tone as always, betraying nothing.

"How have you been treated, for it?"

That's certainly not the question he's been expecting. Then again, he doesn't know what he expects out of this. Accusation, certainly, or retribution, or some vitriol aimed his way.

At least it's a question he can answer.

"I haven't." Almost involuntarily, he glances down at his own chest and then back up again. "I don't like doctors."

Vicious can't possibly know everything that happened to him in prison... although maybe he can and maybe he does. He's good at getting information out of people; Gren saw that enough while they were together on Titan.

"You don't think that's ironic, with how trusting you are in general?"

What Vicious knows and doesn't know is immaterial. He can fake what he doesn't - if he doesn't. He continues to sip his coffee, almost casual if not for the constant weight in his eyes; sharp-edged steel.

Huh.

"It's ironic that I haven't treated the symptoms, or that I don't like doctors?"

It's not ironic in the least that he's too trustful: he always has been. And he won't give Vicious the satisfaction of knowing that he didn't sleep through the night for more than two years after he managed to escape from Pluto. Or that sometimes, the nightmares still wake him in the middle of the night, leaving him sleepless. There was a time here not so long ago when the nightmares were consistent, but that seems to have slowed down.

None of these things are any of Vicious's business. He may be a terrible poker player, but he knows when to shut up. And now's that time: his tea makes a great distraction.

"That you don't like doctors."

His voice is still even, but there's a tint to it that says he's now speaking to Gren like he would a child, or someone very stupid. It's patronizing, but then, Vicious has never been the nicest person, even when he's playing games. One eyebrow is raised slightly, as if he's silently asking if Gren can't even follow a simple conversation.

Vicious did that to him on Titan a few times too: spoke to him like he was an idiot. He didn't like it then and he doesn't like it now but at least now he has the good sense not to react to it.

"There's a lot you don't know." His voice is even, matter-of-fact; he takes a sip of tea and almost smiles. If knowledge is power, then he has a little to spare.

Just a little, though, and he doesn't want to use what he has the wrong way. For now he focuses on that pill bottle still sitting on the table. "So, John Doe. How bad is it for you?" He doesn't have any real sympathy, but he does have enough curiosity and leftover feelings to care... and that surprises him.

Gren's response tells him that yes, it is ironic - and it amuses him a little. A man made paranoid by a condition that he's now too paranoid to get help for. Vicious is a man used to doctors. Being shot at for a living has its consequences, after all.

He could brush Gren off, or give him some non-committal answer. Instead, he answers honestly, because of all things, Vicious does not make a habit of lying.

"I have had three attacks since leaving Titan."

Three, and only three. All three were drawn out, nearly week-long affairs that left him incapacitated, hysterical, out of his mind, violent and uncontrollable. Once was in the City, and he had spent the majority of it in Trish's spare bedroom, trapped in his own delusional hysteria.

Gren doesn't need to know that.

Only three?

There's no competition here, of course; he has to remind himself that he can't feel badly for the man who framed him and turned him in as a spy, ruined his life.

But he also can't forget the way he used to feel before all that happened. While he's always been attracted to a certain type of person, he can't say Vicious ever fit that mold. Usually he wanted men who were more personable, friendlier, more open, more giving. But something about Vicious's solid and very solitary strength attracted him... or maybe it was Titan and the war and the bleakness of the dust and wind and sand fleas and scorpions that made that perceived stoicism so much more attractive.

At any rate, it isn't something he's let himself dwell on much the past three years. And Vicious deserves the post-traumatic stress, doesn't he? Still...

"That's no fun."

Why is it so hard to stay neutral? He's never been good at it. Right now in particular, he feels like an open book; he looks down into his tea and shrugs.

There's more symptoms to his disease than he lets on - that Gren might never pick up for lack of having known him as a younger man, that the others in his life attributed to his spiraling madness and nothing more. The iron-fisted control he exacts over himself in daily life prevents him from being anxious and paranoid on a daily basis, yes, but it also means he's all the more cruel and sadistic and without the ability to connect to others. Vicious is, as he's always said, who he is.

At those little words, he chuckles - actually laughs - and it's good natured enough but there's something unnerving about the way that smoke and ice voice tumbles out in that particular cascade.

That laugh unnerves him a little, but he tries not to show it. It's the laugh of someone wound way too tightly. The tea in his cup is almost gone; he motions to the waitress for refills. What he finds ironic is not that he doesn't like doctors; he's got a very good reason for that and that reason really isn't Vicious's concern. No, what he finds ironic is that there was a time when he would gladly have taken a bullet for him instead of trying to put a bullet in him.

The look the waitress gives Vicious when she refreshes his coffee doesn't escape Gren, but he doesn't really care about it either. He's not jealous: he gave up on that whole concept years ago. Anyway, prison sucked all the joy out of physical contact for him.

Carefully, he folds his arms over his chest: Vicious already announced to the network that he had posed as a woman and he'd rather not call any attention to his body; he's not sure if Vicious knows he wasn't in costume that day on Callisto. But he doesn't really care: no secret can be kept forever and like he told Abby, he's not ashamed of his body. He just doesn't want to be looked on as a curiosity.

"So. Was there anything else you wanted?" He can hardly believe he's so calm, but... he pretty much turned the corner away from wondering and watching and waiting nervously; the stalking's ended (at least for a while). But he can't imagine Vicious went through all the trouble to meet him just to find out if he'd treated the trauma he suffered.

There has to be an ulterior motive, doesn't there? Is he simply being toyed with again?

Of course Vicious is toying with him.

He flicks his eyes up at the waitress - he's not interested in picking her up, but it's a game he plays (a game most men of his stature and confidence play). In truth, he's not ready to piss Elle off yet. And he wouldn't - but Gren doesn't know he's already got a woman, and it wouldn't do to give him that impression just yet.

The syndicate leader looks back over at him when their drinks are refreshed. His voice is seductive - intentionally unconscious - reminiscent of the last time they spoke without animosity, over the phone.

"Is there anything else you wanted?"

"Yeah." But he waits until the waitress is long gone before he says anything else.

He wants to know why Vicious testified against him. He wants to know why he was set up as a spy; he wants to know why Vicious teased him by giving him the music box -- something so beautiful and innocent -- in the middle of a war zone. He wants to know how much he knows about what happened on Pluto, and just how much he expected a setup with the red-eye in Blue Crow. He'd like to know why they're actually sitting here having coffee and tea instead of finishing what they started on Callisto.

While he's at it, he'd like to know if Vicious has thought of him over the years and if so, if it's always been with this same indulgent haughty disgust he's showing now, and he'd like to know why Vicious followed him when he first got here, and how long those three episodes of PTSD lasted and if the drugs really help... not that he'd take them if they did.

But he doesn't ask any of those questions, because he doesn't want to set himself up the wrong way. In fact, he doesn't ask a question at all.

"Yeah, there is. I wanted to apologize for killing your man Lin on the rooftop. That bullet was meant for you."

Vicious doesn't so much as blink. Gren could have asked him about tax paperwork. He sips his coffee, then responds, as easy as if he was speaking about the weather:

"Apology accepted. His absence was felt in the following weeks, though I have no doubt he would have been killed in the battle on Tharsis, had he lived."

He's looking at Gren now, as if he's waiting for him to go on, unimpressed with him bringing up the topic of his attendant. Syndicate members know they will die in battle. It's life. Lin was Vicious' bodyguard. He died protecting Vicious. There is no mourning.

But... Lin's a person, a human being with thoughts and fears and hopes and dreams: he knows this. He's talked to Lin, and Lin is...

...well, what does he really know about Lin? Nothing other than the fact he died protecting Vicious and that he liked him when they spoke here. And Vicious's apology accepted is too easy, too rote, too practiced.

The words are out of his mouth before he has a chance to censor them.

"What happened to you? Were you always this cold?"

Oh, yeah, he wishes he hadn't asked the questions, but he did and can't take them back.

And finally, something more interesting to watch. Gren's more subtle than the shrew-woman, his broken insides are under a thousand layers of delicate plastic wrap, versus bitter armor. So there's no need to attack it - Vicious can pull and tug here and there, and eventually, something will snap.

Vicious leans forward, one elbow resting on the table, shrewd eyes boring into Gren's. His voice is still even.

"Do you ask because you're unable to rend your emotional attachment of me from your soul, or because you find me some horrific trainwreck you can't look away from?"

"I don't know." He meets Vicious's gaze: pale gray left eye first, then pale gray right eye before he looks down into his tea. "It wasn't a premeditated question. Are those my only choices?"

They're not and he knows it; his eyes are clear and steady and very big and blue when he looks up again. "Maybe I asked because I was just curious. Or maybe I asked because I couldn't think of anything better to do with my time."

Or maybe he asked because he used to think he could love Vicious, but he realizes way too late that he was probably wrong about that.

Vicious could have never loved Gren. Maybe, with the support of his friends, he could have accepted Gren as a lover and a companion, but there's always been something off about him, even before Titan. He wasn't always a bad person, but he wasn't ever a good person, either. He's a nightmare, a wraith, and a monster. Before that, he was a killer. Someday the Red Dragons will build a statue in his honor. A god, worshiped by devils.

"A lot happened to me," he all but growls out - or is it a purr? "I happened to a lot."

There's a pause, there, where the noir detective he could pass for might have taken a drag off his cigarette.

"And yes. Everything else was cotton in my ears."

A weakness, that he cut away.

The half-laugh he lets out is shrewd and bitter. "It's a shame."

Whether the shame is that a lot happened to Vicious or that everything else was consciously ignored, he doesn't say.

"While we're being so confessional, I ought to ask you if you had fun following me around. Or maybe you just needed help picking out a suitable houseplant."

He practically spits the words: Vicious is so frustrating. And he's beginning to believe his former comrade is also... crazy, but it takes one to know one. He was there, and the drugs they injected into his veins in prison never made the madness go away. At best, they only buried it.

Vicious smiles at the venom in Gren's voice. Now we're getting a reaction. He picks up his coffee again, drinking that in as he was the other man's tension.

"I had a houseplant, but I gave it to Lin. It seems to calm him."

It's irrelevant. Now he knows Vicious is just playing with him.

(Of course he is. That's the whole point.)

On the bright side, neither of them has tried to kill the other... yet. Doesn't that count for something? Reaching into his pocket, he comes up with coins to cover the cost of their drinks, with enough left over to make the waitress happy.

This conversation is going nowhere fast, and he knows now that he can never really ask the question whose answer he's been burning to know for years: why? It's such a simple thing and he can only imagine the load of bullshit he'd get if he asked it now.

Half of him wants to tell Vicious to drink up and he'll see him safely home. The other half just wants to kill him. But killing Lin was something he doesn't want to repeat: he was a soldier, sure, and he knows he ruined lives by virtue of the rifle he used on Titan. He'd much rather not be responsible for any more deaths, even if they're only of the City variety.

It's a pretty telltale sign that a conversation is over when one member of the party stands and looks toward the door; that's what Gren does now. He can't even say it's been a pleasure.

"Next time, you buy."

There isn't likely to be a next time.

Vicious would tell him why, and he'd be honest. He'd even explain what happened with Spike and Julia - after all, he'd told the Valentine woman, and she was annoying as hell.

He figures when Gren gets the balls to ask him face to face - not at gunpoint, not in a dress, but with honesty - he'll tell him. But Vicious doesn't do anything under duress, Vicious doesn't do shit when people try to make him, and he certainly doesn't offer handouts.

His smile has calmed, but the sadistic edge still reflects in his eyes. He raises his cup in salute, and watches with no move to follow as Gren stands to leave.

That final toast with the coffee cup annoys him more than it ought to. Of course, he should be glad he's leaving here unscathed; he decides to focus on that instead. This has been... weird, to say the least, and he's not sure exactly what Vicious wants from him.

He'll have to go to someone who knows Vicious a little more intimately, relay the details of the conversation, and see if she has any insights she wants to share. That will be after she berates him for going out unarmed, he's sure, but he can take that kind of chiding from Julia. He's not so sure he could deal with it from anyone else right now.

The only thing Vicious gets from him is a very slight nod... and then he's through the door and into the relative anonymity of the city streets. This whole thing's left a bad taste in his mouth, and it's not from the green tea.

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Log; Completed

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