His sleep schedule is completely fucked, Freddy realises, sat up at two in the morning with no customers and nothing to do except keep himself awake. There's a magazine open on the table, hell, he's been thinking about giving real books another try, but he's not really reading it. The cigarette hanging loose from his lip is just a cigarette. A bad habit that he was bound to pick up sooner or later. He blinks, trying to feel the burn of exhaustion behind his eyes.
Iris is back taking customers at all hours of the day. Someone went in with her about an hour ago and they must have paid for some pretty exclusive treatment because it's been dead quiet since then. Away from his bed, not pressed up against the wall, Freddy doesn't have to listen to the sounds of sex peeling away the layers of their mutual privacy.
He'll ask her about it in the morning, and he'll ask Sport if she's supposed to be up working so late so soon after having to take a full day off.
Perhaps sound echoes through these old buildings, but there's so much going on in New York that you only ever notice it when it's right under your nose. Freddy's daydreaming about the woods he used to be able to reach from his front door if he was determined enough and if he patched up his bike. Dark and shady, damp enough to dissipate the worst of the summer heat. And sometimes, in the early autumn, you'd hear the farmer's shotgun go off, hunting for wild grouse in the fields beyond.
Despite the national reports of gun violence and mayhem, Freddy's always escaped having to deal with any of that shit. When the sound of a bullet breaking free of a shotgun barrel ricochets up from the ground floor though, he knows what it means.
Bang, bang. Motherfucker. Here they come. Freddy tenses, head whipped up towards the door as if that's going to reveal anything. Why would someone shoot? What could they possibly be trying to get from ninety second street that they couldn't get anywhere else?
Freddy knows exactly what. He gulps down air in a rush like that's going to make it any easier to keep breathing when he has to make a call on what to do. As quiet as he can, avoiding the creaking boards left in the floor, a death trap for mice caught out in just such a situation as this, he scurries over to the door, letting it fall open just a crack and dropping himself to the ground.
People expect you to be at eye level. If you go in low, they don't know what to make of it.
A hulking dark figure strides up the stairs, hidden in a bomber jacket with his hair carved in two in the classic identifier of the Mohawk nation. One hand in his pocket, the other dropped down by his side, the gun just visible in the fractured light that makes its way through to the stairwell. There's something familiar in the cut of his jaw, the line of his body as he walks, but Freddy can't put his finger on it.
The guy ignores him completely, and Freddy forgets to move till the splutter of gunshot through wood tears down Iris's bedroom door.
Forgets to move, then forgets to breathe. Time turns to soup around him, impossible to move through as he staggers to his feet, throwing open the door and bursting out into the corridor. He looks towards Iris's room and is met by the prone figures of two Johns with their brains blown out, blood seeping into the pastel pink carpet. The shooter is collapsed against the back wall, holding up a hand to the cut clipped from his neck, blood spooling out from between the fingers of one hand.
And the other hand raised to his temple, pried out in the image of a hand gun. Travis looks at Freddy and smiles.
"Freddy! Freddy we gotta fuckin' go!" Gemima screams from the floor below. But Freddy's not going, he's moving forward, determined to assure himself that Iris is ok. He reaches the broken door and gets his hand on it firm enough to give himself splinters and he thinks he catches sight of something moving, something that looks like her.
Then hands are on him, pulling him back. Gemima and Katie and Larissa and he's not strong enough to fight off all of them. He's not even really fighting, just striding forward and letting them drag him back. Past his open bedroom door, down the stairs, all the way to the dismal little foyer where Harry shorts Johns out of a few extra bucks before they take their paid for prizes to bed.
There's blood on the floor, his bare feet slipping in it.
"We have to go." Someone mumbles, someone else cries.
They have nothing. They have to go.
Piled up by the front door in a long, rainbow kimono, with a glow-stick wrapped around his neck, the blood clashes horribly with Sport's skin tone. His eyes are open and glassy in death, all the heat sucked out of them by the bullet. The others aren't really looking, but Freddy feels the guy's blood between his toes, his hand on his hip, his mouth on his mouth. He doesn't break eye contact til the door falls closed behind them and the ninety second street tenements are lost for good.
Re: Sport/Orange - shady skeevey stuff - 32/?
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His sleep schedule is completely fucked, Freddy realises, sat up at two in the morning with no customers and nothing to do except keep himself awake. There's a magazine open on the table, hell, he's been thinking about giving real books another try, but he's not really reading it. The cigarette hanging loose from his lip is just a cigarette. A bad habit that he was bound to pick up sooner or later. He blinks, trying to feel the burn of exhaustion behind his eyes.
Iris is back taking customers at all hours of the day. Someone went in with her about an hour ago and they must have paid for some pretty exclusive treatment because it's been dead quiet since then. Away from his bed, not pressed up against the wall, Freddy doesn't have to listen to the sounds of sex peeling away the layers of their mutual privacy.
He'll ask her about it in the morning, and he'll ask Sport if she's supposed to be up working so late so soon after having to take a full day off.
Perhaps sound echoes through these old buildings, but there's so much going on in New York that you only ever notice it when it's right under your nose. Freddy's daydreaming about the woods he used to be able to reach from his front door if he was determined enough and if he patched up his bike. Dark and shady, damp enough to dissipate the worst of the summer heat. And sometimes, in the early autumn, you'd hear the farmer's shotgun go off, hunting for wild grouse in the fields beyond.
Despite the national reports of gun violence and mayhem, Freddy's always escaped having to deal with any of that shit. When the sound of a bullet breaking free of a shotgun barrel ricochets up from the ground floor though, he knows what it means.
Bang, bang. Motherfucker. Here they come. Freddy tenses, head whipped up towards the door as if that's going to reveal anything. Why would someone shoot? What could they possibly be trying to get from ninety second street that they couldn't get anywhere else?
Freddy knows exactly what. He gulps down air in a rush like that's going to make it any easier to keep breathing when he has to make a call on what to do. As quiet as he can, avoiding the creaking boards left in the floor, a death trap for mice caught out in just such a situation as this, he scurries over to the door, letting it fall open just a crack and dropping himself to the ground.
People expect you to be at eye level. If you go in low, they don't know what to make of it.
A hulking dark figure strides up the stairs, hidden in a bomber jacket with his hair carved in two in the classic identifier of the Mohawk nation. One hand in his pocket, the other dropped down by his side, the gun just visible in the fractured light that makes its way through to the stairwell. There's something familiar in the cut of his jaw, the line of his body as he walks, but Freddy can't put his finger on it.
The guy ignores him completely, and Freddy forgets to move till the splutter of gunshot through wood tears down Iris's bedroom door.
Forgets to move, then forgets to breathe. Time turns to soup around him, impossible to move through as he staggers to his feet, throwing open the door and bursting out into the corridor. He looks towards Iris's room and is met by the prone figures of two Johns with their brains blown out, blood seeping into the pastel pink carpet. The shooter is collapsed against the back wall, holding up a hand to the cut clipped from his neck, blood spooling out from between the fingers of one hand.
And the other hand raised to his temple, pried out in the image of a hand gun. Travis looks at Freddy and smiles.
"Freddy! Freddy we gotta fuckin' go!" Gemima screams from the floor below. But Freddy's not going, he's moving forward, determined to assure himself that Iris is ok. He reaches the broken door and gets his hand on it firm enough to give himself splinters and he thinks he catches sight of something moving, something that looks like her.
Then hands are on him, pulling him back. Gemima and Katie and Larissa and he's not strong enough to fight off all of them. He's not even really fighting, just striding forward and letting them drag him back. Past his open bedroom door, down the stairs, all the way to the dismal little foyer where Harry shorts Johns out of a few extra bucks before they take their paid for prizes to bed.
There's blood on the floor, his bare feet slipping in it.
"We have to go." Someone mumbles, someone else cries.
They have nothing. They have to go.
Piled up by the front door in a long, rainbow kimono, with a glow-stick wrapped around his neck, the blood clashes horribly with Sport's skin tone. His eyes are open and glassy in death, all the heat sucked out of them by the bullet. The others aren't really looking, but Freddy feels the guy's blood between his toes, his hand on his hip, his mouth on his mouth. He doesn't break eye contact til the door falls closed behind them and the ninety second street tenements are lost for good.