kore_logs | I don't feel like calming down, no I don't

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I don't feel like calming down, no I don't

Who: Charlie Luciano and Ned
What: Fine scotch is the perfect apology for accidental kidnapping, right?
When: Day 67
Where: Ned's place again (man he needs to get a guard dog all these gangsters are finding him)
Warnings: Really really terrible attempts at apologies. Also booze!

To be perfectly fair to Charlie, he had been planning on coming to see Ned himself. So all the nagging he'd got from Meyer about it was completely unnecessary. He'd been aware of Meyer paying his own visit the other day, and figured he just had to bite the bullet and go for it. With the two of them trying to set up their game in town, it would be damn stupid to leave yourself with any potential enemies when the problem could be cleared up with a little dialogue.

Not that dialogue was Charlie's forte. Which is why he brought a peace offering.

He'd found the bottle of scotch under the floorboards in the closet of his room. And yes, he'd looked under the floorboards. It had been a very long week stuck indoors and it had made him feel marginally better to at least pretend he was hunting for treasure.

Which is why Charlie is holding a bottle of rather nice scotch with him as he rings the doorbell. He's dressed down from his usual suit, as they finally decided to make an attempt to blend in a little more. And the knees of his suit pants were wearing through. He's in jeans and a modern-looking jacket, with his hair curly and sticking up everywhere without the usual pomade.

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Ned laughs and it is half-delighted, half-disbelieving.

"Yes, Charlie. They have keys." He knows it's not fair: the other man hasn't been here as long as he has. If he were thinking a little more clearly, Ned might feel bad to be the one shattering Charlie's illusion of privacy and security. He'd felt safe, just be locking the door. Is it really his place to interfere with that? Then again, he is a grown man, and should be able to handle the truth.

"They have the technology to bring us together from across time, to change us all, overnight, into... into vampires and monsters and whatever the hell you and I turned into. I'm pretty sure they can manage to get a door open."

Ned finishes his drink, stares down into the empty glass. His head is starting to swim, now, his tongue loosening around the sorts of things he doesn't usually say aloud.

"They come into people's houses and kidnap people at night. My friend Kenzi, she was here last night, safe and sound in her bedroom upstairs. Only not safe and sound because this morning?" Ned gestures with his hand, as if to demonstrate a puff of smoke, "Gone. None of us know where they've taken her or what they're doing to her, and there's nothing any of us can do about it."

And it could happen to Charlie, Ned thinks. He could wake up one morning and find Meyer gone, no warning, no explanation.

He shrugs at Charlie's question, teeth gritted with old frustrations. "The usual stuff. Snooping and prying and eavesdropping, searching our stuff, reading our mail or boys' journals if they kept them. All for our own good, of course."

"Fuck you, man, you don't know they don't have keys." His tone is more playful than outright angry now, even if he tosses a throw cushion in Ned's direction.

But his next explanation makes the mood more serious again. He's right that Meyer is the first place Charlie's mind goes to at the thought of midnight kidnappings. He has no idea how the hell it works, if it's more fucked of magic like half the things in this place seem to run on, but if it's anything as simple as attempted abduction, he's not going to let him get taken away alone without a fight.

He pushes back to urge to announce any desire to check on Meyer right away. He can slip away to use the can and try it then. He's drunk, alright, he's allowed to be needy.

He lets that topic slide, latching onto the next one much more eagerly. It's fairly hard for him to speak as to how he would feel if Meyer went missing without getting a little obvious.

"That's fucking messed up. See, this is the shit made me leave school soon as I could."

Ned deflects the pillow with ease, watches as Charlie processes the news about the disappearances. His worry is plain. Good, Ned thinks. He ought to be worried. They all ought to be, especially since the rate of disappearances seems to be rapidly increasing. But if Charlie doesn't want to talk about that anymore for the moment, Ned isn't going to make him. It's a lot to take in. It's hard, the realization that you are completely powerless.

"I left as soon as they let me." He lounges back against the couch, looser-limbed than before, not so afraid of taking up a little space. He doesn't look at Charlie as he talks, running a hand over his face - oh, that feels strange, why does touching his own face feel strange, just because he's been drinking? "I don't... know if it was a law in the '20s, but in my time the government won't just let you live on your own if you're under eighteen, even if you want to. Could've run off, but I didn't have any money or anywhere to go, so they probably would've found me pretty fast and taken me back. I figured, why bother? So it was the Longborough School for Boys til I was a legal adult."

There's a lot of information, buried in that particular rant. That his school was more of a prison than anything else. That he hadn't had a home to go back to, or parents. That he'd had to start his life from scratch the day on his eighteenth birthday.

"Sounds like one of them fancy boarding schools, y'know?"

That is clearly the most important piece of that information for Charlie to have clarified.

"Eighteen? What the fuck do you still have to learns by then?" He takes another sip of his drink. "I left at sixteen, Meyer was even earlier. Them rich kids, I guess they get to stay ons forever but what's the fucking point if you ain't gonna be some fucking academic, you know? The rest of us gotta work for a living."

"It wasn't like that." Oh, he's far too drunk to explain it properly to Charlie right now, but the implication of that he stayed on because he was afraid to leave the academic cocoon, that it was his choice, that he was coddled, sets his teeth on edge. "I just told you I didn't have a choice. It wasn't that kind of- " he lets out a short, frustrated sigh. More whiskey. Definitely more whiskey.

Ned sits forward and pours himself another glass. He's angry enough not to be careful with his information, now. "It wasn't fancy and I wasn't a rich kid. It was like a charity thing. Catholic, y'know. They were keeping me, 'cause my dad abandoned me there, never to be seen or heard from again, alright?"

It's not exactly how he imagined it, the first time he'd tell anyone about his dad. He drains the glass he'd just poured and pinches the bridge of his nose, trying to reign in the anger. He feels like he could do anything right now. Punch Charlie in the face. Chuck his empty glass at the cameras. Just storm into the kitchen and start breaking everything he can get his hands on. There's a reason he doesn't talk about all this, doesn't let himself think about it. He probably wouldn't be, if it hadn't been for his conversation with Jesse, earlier. It was all on the surface already, just waiting for the tiniest tap to break the shell.

"Yeah, yeah. Fucking cool it, pal, I weren't accusing you of murder here." Charlie telling someone to calm down feels a lot like a pot calling a kettle black, but what are you gonna do? He's rather not not punched, thanks. Because then he'd have to fight back and he was supposed to be not making any more enemies.

In the particular mood he's in now, the 'wasn't accusing you of murder' line is pretty funny, to Ned. But Charlie's right, of course he is. He doesn't know what's gotten into him. Well, no, he doesn't know.

"Sorry," he mutters, but it's at least half resentful. He scrubs his hands over his face, pushes his hair back, leaving it a bit of a mess. "Angry drunk, I guess."

"You ain't the first one." Meanwhile, Charlie is a slightly sickening upbeat drunk, probably evidenced by the friendly shove he gives Ned. He was going for friendly, anyway.

"Sos. You do pies for a living, right?"

Did Charlie just... shove him? Ned gives him a baffled look for a minute, but he's smiling, seems to think of it as some sort of convivial gesture, so he let's it go without comment.

"Yeah, I'm a pie-maker. Just opened my own shop, before all this."

He gesticulates vaguely and rather pissily in the direction of the camera.

"Good for yous. They don't make it fucking easy for people starting shit like that up, you know?" Perhaps the 'they' in Ned's circumstances are a great deal for different than in Charlie's. As are the goals. But THE MAN. Gotta stick up to it.

Ned is perfectly willing to concede the nonspecific 'they' in this case. And maybe he is still a little sore about Charlie's implication that he didn't have to work for a living.

"No, it wasn't easy. Been saving up for it for about ten years." Because when you aren't dealing with the world of crime, that's what people do. They work, and save, and scrape by. What will happen if he comes back and it's months later? What will have happened? Will they have sold the space to someone else? What about his apartment? He hopes that Digby had the sense to get out and find food, somewhere (there's a fire escape, and Ned knows perfectly well how smart his dog is), but what if they've sold his apartment?

"'s all I ever wanted to do, though."

Charlie is still just largely confused about what got Ned so worked up. Okay, you saved up? Have a cookie? Besides, he's got enough of the worrying about the state of their business from Meyer. And he'll admit to being pretty fucking nervous about it sometimes, too. After all, they fall behind on their payments they're getting a bullet in the brain. If they're lucky.

But worrying doesn't do any god. So he doesn't, most of the time. It's been a very effective system for him.

"Nice to have a purpose for your life and all that shit."

"What about you?"

Ned is squinting at the whiskey bottle. Have they really had that much, already? He hadn't been paying attention. But he feels drunk now - properly, undeniably drunk.

And really, what good does it do to have a purpose, to know his purpose, and be kept from it? Not just the shop -that was a means to an end. But making people happy. Supporting himself. Making pies. Living quietly. Staying under the radar.

"You have a purpose?"

It's cute. Ned is a fun drunk, when he isn't getting all angry. And kind of then, too.

"Yeah. Make enough I ain't living in a shithole in the east end no more, and sos we don't owe nothing to no one."

"That's a good purpose."

Ned puts a great store in not relying on anyone, not owing any favors. It's not surprising, perhaps, given he hasn't had anyone to rely on but himself since he was nine. That kind of situation breeds independence of an almost pathological variety. Then, without even realizing he's going to ask it, he blurts, "You have a family?"

Was Charlie trying to improve things for them? Get away from them? Or maybe he's like Ned, and there's no one.

"Yeah. My ma's still around, then there's three younger than me. They're good kids. Older brother fucked off somewhere soon as we moved to New York, don't see him 'til he runs outta money. Pa had the same idea." He sends money to his mother when he can, not that he'll say that. I the circles he's used to traveling, there are some things you don't admit to.

Ned can only nod to all that, leaning forward to pour himself more of the whiskey. It is strange, the way he can be more honest with himself, when he's drunk. The way he can acknowledge that the feeling gripping him then is an envy that cuts so deep it's nearly hatred. Charlie's family doesn't sound perfect, with his older brother and his dad as a burden, but it's a family. A real, living, breathing family. Ned had wanted a little brother or sister, when he was young. He wonders how different his life would've been if he'd had one.

And his family must still be in New York. Missing him. Wondering where he is, and if he's alright. And of course Charlie must be missing them, as well - anything else is inconceivable, to Ned.

He takes another slow sip of the whiskey in silence.

Well, it's not like Charlie's lived there in a while. It's have to be a few months before they got worried. And in that case they'd probably just assume the worst. After all, Charlie's already been to jail once.

But like he wants to think about that and ruin his buzz. Ned's face seems intent on doing that all on its own.

"Who the fuck walked over your grave, pal?"

Ned looks over quickly, surprised, realizes he must be letting that bitter jealousy show, in some way. He's never been the best at keeping his expression neutral, even at the soberest of times. But he doesn't exactly appreciate Charlie pointing that out to him.

He says, defiantly, "What? It's just my face." Can't you tell he means it, Charlie, from the way he manages to even make drinking look stiffly angry? But he can play this off. Charlie isn't the one he should be mad at, he knows.

"I just thinking... they don't care." He jerks his head in the direction of the camera, "About any of that. Whether the people here've got families going crazy wondering where they went back home. Some of the people here are just kids, y'know?"

"The thing I don't get with it all. I mean, other than every fucking thing about hows we got here. I wonder why they ain't showing their faces, you know? You'd think they'd sure be into gloating." That's how must kidnapping has worked in his experience, anyway.

Charlie has a point, Ned thinks. He isn't as experienced with kidnappers (present company aside), but wasn't that the cliche? The mad scientist or evil wizard or criminal mastermind always showed up in person for a good gloat, to monologue and say cutting things that cut deep at the hero's vulnerabilities but ultimately revealed some crucial detail that led to their downfall.

That isn't happening, here. The men behind the curtain are staying there. And it makes them all the more ominous - the facelessness, the absence.

"Gloating would be better," he says, darkly. "At least then we'd know for sure who we were dealing with."

"Yeah. And I'd have a clear fucking shot to their head." This is getting grim again, time for more pie. It makes everything better.

Ned might not be a mobster himself but he's been through enough in this place that he isn't exactly going to disagree that a clear shot might be a very good thing to have, when it comes to their captors. Whether or not he'd be as blase with it in the moment, while sober, is another question entirely.

But it doesn't escape him that this is the second time that Charlie's mentioned someone shooting someone else as a likelihood - though the first time had been referring to Meyer. He doesn't think too much of it though. New York in the 20s was doubtless a violent place. Some of that is bound to sink in.

"You know what else I don't get-" Ned says, warmly. There is the faintest hint of a slur just beginning to touch the edges of his pronunciation. "I get them wanting me. I get them wanting River and... and some other people. We're freaks. But you and Meyer, you're normal. Why'd they take you?"

Wow, rude. But then again, he does have a point. Not for a first time, Charlie wishes he had a damn cigarette, if only to fill the time deciding how to answer that particular question. Instead he'll just go with taking another bite of pie. Less dramatic, but just as effective as a stalling tactic.

"Those powers and whatever you people got. They must reckon that ain't everything." After all, him and Meyer have plenty of skills of their own. (Well, mostly Meyer. He won't kid himself that he's the more effective one on their partnership.)

If there is a certain degree of petulance or defensiveness in that answer, it is lost on Ned, who thinks that he just now passed the border between tipsy and well and truly drunk. It's not a question of merit; it's a question of why they were brought here. It can't be just to do experiments on people who are different in the way that Ned is different - not if there are people like Jesse and Kenzi (thinking that gives him a pain of sadness) and Charlie and Meyer mixed in with all the rest.

"Didn't even think other people with powers existed before I got here."

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