entranceway | 01 🔥 video

Entry tags:

01 🔥 video

I'm getting real tired of getting dumped in strange places against my will. I don't like it.

[There's a low, dangerous growl of disapproval and the expression on Mick's face is not a pretty one. It's somewhat reminiscent of an angry bull. This was the second time in God knows how many days that Mick Rory has found himself stranded somewhere new and different, unsure what the hell is happening. It's not a good feeling. It didn't inspire much good will.

Though this is a definite improvement over the last place. For one, there's food. For another, he gets a free smart phone to yell at people over and voice his anger. Not bad. Though he did kind of think they went a little overboard with the white. What was with all the decorations anyway? This better not be like some low rent Christmas Town cause honestly, that sounded a lot like hell.]

You got five minutes to convince me not to torch this place to the ground cause I ain't in the mood to play nice right now. Somebody start talking. [The words come out as an angry snarl, teeth barred. He's not a happy bunny.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ That's not the worst reason to talk to someone, honestly. Lenny should know by now that the company he keeps is more likely to take a warning as a challenge. ]

And sometimes that reaction costs you friends or gets you sent away.

.... not like there's much farther away than here, but you get what I mean.

I already lost my friends. I already got 'sent away' so clearly I got nothing to lose when I do what I do. You can't lose what you don't have and all I have is this.

[He shows her his lighter. The one thing he has here, stolen from someone in the bar. His lifeline right now. He doesn't have his gun, he doesn't know what happened to it. All he knows is he needs the flame.]

[ She takes a moment to consider that. ]

Does it make you mad when other people have stuff you don't? I get like that sometimes. You start thinking it'll be better for nobody to have anything if it means someone's gonna think they're better than someone else.

Some people don't deserve to have anything. [Frankly, he includes himself in that. What does he deserve? Nothing. He just knows what he wants and he wanted to have it. And Leonard stopped him. Every time.] It ain't what other people have that bugs me. It's what they throw away. They got something important and they had it for years and then suddenly it ain't worth shit. That bothers me.

People change. And when they do, they drop the things that should matter.

That's bull. [ And also exhilarating to say. Maya's trying to test out stronger language. ]

Sure, people change. But people change people. If you feel like someone close to you is starting to make the wrong choices, then you stop them and remind them what's important. If they're making bad choices, you can get your friends to make better ones.

And if they're not your friends, then they're not worth it in the first place. You can't save everyone. [ Only one person can do that, and Mr Big and Beefy ain't her. ]

I did, I tried. I was just slow, I didn't realise that what's important to me stopped being important to him. See, that's the thing, you ain't wrong. People change people. And when there's a lotta them and they're all saying the same shit then you got no chance. [He just thought Leonard would listen to him over people he barely knew. He knows now that he was stupid, that of course Leonard would be all about the team.

That's why he left you, he could do better. He could be better. You can't. He shuts down that particularly train of thought and takes a deep inhale to try and keep himself calm.] What you're saying is all good and sweet if you live in the sorta world where friends fall out, it hurts but you just move on and everything gets better. That ain't how it always goes.

You ever been ditched by a friend?

I've been ditched by a lot of people. I got a lot of experience in getting left. Makes you kind of crazy. You start thinking about all the stuff you did wrong, all like it was your fault and maybe you coulda made them stay if you changed something.

[ She chews on the inside of her cheek. ]

You stayed mad though. You ever stopped to think about who you're mad at?

I know who I'm mad at.

[Leonard. Rip too, for starting this mess, all the idiot in that crew. Also space pirates. Pretty much that list. He knew the others had started this, he knew this wasn't just Leonard and he was to blame. It just hurt that Leonard was like this because friends didn't do this, they shouldn't do this. Even if he did something that terrible. Leonard should have killed him fast, leaving him to die like that. Slow, painful, alone? It was damn cruel.]

You got someone you like? Like a best friend or something? Let me help you grasp this. Imagine that best friend made new friends and slowly, little by little, they turned on you. They decided they're in charge of this friendship, they call the shots and you can't have anything you want any more. And you don't even talk it out, not once, cause it ain't up for debate. They're right, you're wrong. How would that make you feel?

Probably pretty close to the way it feels when you're way too young and all you've ever known is that mom and dad fight sometimes but they're staying together because they love you. And then one day Dad goes to work and doesn't come home and you spend the next seven years blaming everyone for what happened because you're too scared to talk about what's really wrong. So everyone just thinks you're angry and dangerous.

[ Her voice cracks. She swallows, then continues. ]

So. You let them think that, because it means they don't see the you that you're afraid of being. Because then it's easier. Then you don't have to think about why you weren't good enough to make someone stay.

But... Maybe it's not great to be that angry all the time.

[ She clears her throat, looking away from camera. ]

That's. What I think about it, at least.

My parents fought a lot too. I think it's what parents do. [Is now a good time to tell her he burnt them both alive? ... Probably not the best timing.] Adults are dicks, in case you didn't figure that one out. You seem smart, you probably know. We fight and get pissed and cause damage to each other and everyone around us and it only gets worse the older you get. You get more bitter, the world kicks you down harder, you gotta fight sometimes.

Sometimes anger is the right response. It's all I got now. I tried being sad, it didn't get me anywhere neither, not did trying to undo what happened and back out. So at least when I'm pissed off, everyone else gets hurt. And it's petty but right now, it helps.

[He smirks, tilting his head back as he takes her in. The parental issues, the attitude, the way she is. He can see a little of why Leonard got so defensive. His mind goes to Lisa and he can't help that train of thought.]

I see why Snart likes you.

He's all right.

[ Lenny is the coolest. And though it feels a bit like they ought to continue on topic, it feels a lot like picking at scabs. He seems calmer now. Maybe that's enough for right now. He offers a new topic and she jumps on that instead.]

You know him a long time?

Snart? Yep.

[He shrugs his shoulders. There's a question and a half]

Met him when he was this little punk kid in juvie. He was like fourteen, I wasn't much older. The other kids like to kick his ass and [there's a pause.] dunno why, it just bothered me. They jumped him, they wanted to gut his insides and I stepped in. Saved his ass. He never left me alone after that.

See, Leonard thinks he's like this untouchable guy, like he has everything down but he's ain't all that. [Leonard was as much of a mess as anyone else, he just didn't like to show it.] Someone has to have his back to keep him alive. Used to be me.

[ Maya's eyes grow wide. She's heard this story before, with a different slant. She jumps out of her chair, shouting with teenage excitement. ]

You're him! You're the best friend!

Was.

[How hard is this to grasp. He gives her a look.]

Best friends don't leave you to die in the middle of nowhere. He ain't no friend of mine.

That's gotta be some weird time stuff -- Lenny loves you.

[ This is one of the certainties of the universe. ]

Nah, see, he loved me when I was his yes man. His dog. Then I started to want to do my own thing and it upset him. He only loves me when I do what he tells me.

[Why else would he have turned on him? 2046 still burned a hole in him, he still felt so angry. Leonard had never called him stupid before, never called himself the boss and then he did. He ruined everything.]

Like he said. I'm the dumb one. I didn't listen like a good boy so he put me down. Hard.

Friends fight sometimes. But then they make up. That's how friendship like that works.

[ She's insistent about that, more than the abstract hypotheticals they used before. ]

He doesn't talk about you like you used to be friends. He talks about you like a best friend still. He misses you. And I bet he's pretty happy to see you again. I mean, under all that tough guy stuff he puts on when he wants to look cool.

Look, kid. I don't know where you get all this flowery happy Disney bullshit you're spouting but that isn't how the world works. You don't make up with the person who left you to die. He decided the dorks he was hanging out with were more important than me. And I was stuck there, with him, day in and day out as he turned on me.

[Suddenly it was just them against everyone else. Suddenly it was everyone else against Mick. They weren't his friends. ~~Except Jax. Jax was pure.~~]

This wasn't just a fight. This was a fight he ended when he left me for dead.

You look pretty not-dead to me.

[And in that, she takes a chance. Wonderland is kind of sticky about its relationship to dead things. But Lenny wouldn't really do what this guy's accusing him f doing. Not this extreme. Not to his Riley.]

Maybe he trusts you enough to know you could handle yourself on your own for a little while.

[She doesn't know how not to have a talk like this that doesn't end cleanly in half an hour.]

Cause of this place. It came and it took me. That's why I'm alive because I was on my way out without it

It's been four days, kid. Four days alone. I thought like you're thinking now. He's gotta come back, right? Cause he's my best friend. My partner. Even when I got here, a little part of me thought he was going to have come if it wasn't for this place.

[There's a pause. If only it was that easy.] I got told, in fewer words, of my future. See, I can read between the lines, I ain't as dumb as they think. [He looks down. It's clear that it's hitting him hard. He hasn't really talked about it, not like this. Not with someone who seemed to love Leonard.] He never came for me. I know that now. [He's not sure what happens next, if he lives or dies, he has a feeling he's going to make it. He knows for a fact it's not because of anyone on the waverider.]

Ask him yourself, I doubt he'd deny it.

I can talk to him later. I'm interested in you now.

[She presses her lips together. This isn't the kind of talk she thought she'd be having with Lenny's best friend from home. She figured it was going to be a fun ride recapping all kinds of bank heists and underground huckster-ness. This isn't it. Lenny's not the wild one. He's the Cory. And talking to this guy feels kind of like staring at the future she's always kind of figured she'd be in for.]

I'm Maya, by the way. Do you wanna meet up somewhere and talk more?

[At least maybe then she can keep an eye on his need to set stuff on fire.]

Look, kid, I appreciate the offer but today has not been my day and I wanna drink my ass off and try to block it all out. If you were old enough to get into a bar, I might have considered it but nah.

[He doesn't want to leave the bar to go talk with some kid, he's not in a good headspace for it and he's not really sure if he can trust himself right now. He doesn't want to do something he's going to regret.]

Some other time. [It's a dismissal really. He's not chasing her up and she won't be going after him, not once Leonard gets to her.]

[It's a dismissal, but couched within a "if only you were something you aren't" statement. She raises an eyebrow at that.]

You don't think I could get into a bar if I wanted to?

[Is this a challenge, good sir?]

Nah.

[He smirks, unable to help himself. This kid is amusing enough. Still, he just doesn't quite believe she means it.]

It's gotta be your bedtime, kid. Go to sleep.

I'll be there in fifteen.

["Fifteen" is more like half an hour, but soon enough she'll go striding into the bar thoroughly dressed up in her most adult attire. The problem is that, given her background, Maya's idea of "bar-aged adults" involves short a short skirt, high heels, and piles of makeup. If nothing else, she's achieved the "drunken frat girl" aesthetic.

She picks a stool beside Mick and regards him with eyes grown heavy from the weight of extra lashes.]

So about that talk we were gonna have.

Re: Video

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

private video just to drive Leonard nuts because he's mature

private video because Maya's totally on board with letting him sweat a little

private video

Re: private video

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject