7/25/2003
01:12
AM
Logfile
from Chase.
The
Berkley Apartments - 202
Really
nothing more than a college dorm come to life in an apartment building, 202 has
a distinct hand done feel about nearly everything in the room - from the
blue-and-white walls to the reupholstery on the couch and armchair. The perfect
example of working on a budget. Electronics are limited to the computer propped
on the desk, a small radio, and a tiny televison, while the kitchen is little
more than a niche in the wall. A second doorway leads to the bedroom, even
smaller than a dorm room because it has to share space with the bathroom as
well. Posters and photgraphs decorate the walls, and books are scattered on
every surface imaginable, often three or four deep, and all on sujects that do
not typically involve numbers: history, philosophy, psychology, world
religions, literature, politics and various languages - even some /in/ a couple
of those languages.
Hikitsu
is here.
Obvious
exits:
Exit
There's
just something about these night shifts that take the joy out of work. Maybe
it's the idea that Ash might be asleep before he gets home, or that he'll have
to dig in the fridge for leftovers, and there's not likely to be much. But
whichever the case, Brice is approaching the Berkley, trying to dig out his
keys and not drop his bag - 'twould be very bad if everything fell out.
One of
the windows at the third floor is open, for once the unit AC not working away
to cool the inside confines of the apartment up there. A tweak of the senses
and a dark-haired head peeps out the window. Stifled snicker and it disappears.
A moment later and it is showing up once more, two bright blue balls held in
hand. Well, they look like balls, but are actually balloons. Wind is consulted,
angle theorized, and then they both drop. Look out below... or not.
Ker-*SPLASH*SPLASH!*
A wordless sort of roar/yell can be heard from the now drenched - and /green/ -
figure on the sidewalk, bag dropping to the cement and papers half-spilling out
everywhere, hands help up in front of him, also green-spotted. Brice just
/looks/ at them for a second, before his head snaps up (sending green droplets
everywhere) to /that/ /window/. "////CHASE!////" oh listen to him
roar. He knows who it was. "YOU ARE SO DEAD MISTER! THERE IS NO TELLING
YOU HOW DEAD YOU ARE!"
Chase
should probably have stuck his head back in the apartment, but you know what?
He would so much rather actually see the splashes happen and the look on
Brice's face. To hell with his own health. The kid actually breaks out into a
huge smile, waving a hand down at Brice. "Wow. Aniki. You really need to
work on your alertness. Consider this a lesson learned, grasshopper."
Chase's
health is kinda a misnomer at this point. He'd be lucky to get away with only
being stuck to the floor a la Namame. As a matter of fact, Brice GLARES up at
the window, a dull green light starting to shine around his patch - but he
stops it before there's more than a thin layer of ice connecting Chase to the
floor. Easy to get out of. Just a little reminder of what could happen if he
does something funny. He stoops, grumbling mightily, and carefully gathers his
things together, trying not to get the dripping green stuff all over it. When
he's got it all, he tips back his head again and glares once more. "Chase,
meet me in my apartment RIGHT NOW. If you're not there, you're head's
MINE." And in he goes, trying to decide if this is a lawful murder or not.
*snap-snap*
Yes, pictures. Very necessary to have. But, Oh, puh-lease. Chase rolls his eyes
at the ice showing up on the floor. Really now. Sure, it would be so much
easier if he was the one to conjure the stuff up, to just as easily shatter it,
but seeing as this is Brice's creation, that mental effort to crack it takes a
touch more effort. Another wave to Brice from on high, and then he moves away,
snickering. He'll just wait 'til he feels Brice down below, and then maybe
he'll mosey down there.
It
wasn't hard ice to crack - just a film. But it gets the point across, or so he
hopes. Brice storms upstairs, dripping in the elevator, and over to 202 - and
there's no otouto outside. Fuming, Brice opens the door - and no otouto inside
either. So over to thewindow it is, and Brice throws it open and yells up
again. "CHAAAAAAASE! DOWN HERE, NOW!"
"Coooommmmmmmming,"
is Chase's sing-song reply. He is currently rather busy putting the bag of
balloons into a drawer and shoving the other packs of kool aid away as well.
When all incriminating evidence is gone, he moves to climb out the window and
onto the fire escape, and from there swing down to the fire escape platform
directly below. *Clunk!* Why take the stairs when this is so much more fun.
"Hrm?"
Brice
is still leaning out the window and glaring, so he's basically glaring right at
Chase now. And boy does he look funny - you can't control how water balloons
break, so Brice's entire head is mostly green with gray stripes. He looks like
some sort of art neuveau zebra or something, and his skin's also turning
somewhat tinted. "What did you do and what is this stuff and HOW do I get
it off?"
Chase
remains crouched on the fire escape platform after the drop, peering through
the window at Brice, and just barely managing to keep from laughing outright.
Snicker-snicker. "Uhm... shampoo? Maybe..." Good luck with that.
"Just kool-aid."
Brice
pulls himself back in to glance at his reflection in the window glass, his eye
widens, and then he's shooting back out the window to grab the front of Chase's
shirt and hold onto him tightly. "I'M STRIPED!" At this point a
couple of people passing on the street look up at the roaring, their own eyes
widening and quickly hurrying away. Brice glares at the otouto, holding his
grip tight. "I don't want to be striped." He's nearly growling. Wow
Chase, he's /pissed!/ Yay for you!
Chase
really can't help it anymore, especially when Brice yells about that striped
comment. He really starts snickering and laughing now. He is grabbed though,
and he tries his level best not to look too amused at the state the other Genbu
is in. "Uhm.... maybe I could get more of the lemon-lime kool-aid and we
can do the rest in green. It really is a nice color on you." Wow, maybe if
Brice is so caught up with his hair, he won't even notice the new hoop eyebrow
ring. This is great! "You'll be more alert now, right?"
"Get
it." Brice lets go of Chase's shirt, almost tossing the fabric away, and
ducking back into the apartment. He'd rather be green then green-striped;
lesser of two evils type thing. He hasn't noticed the piercing, luckily -
normally he wouldn't mind it, but this ain't exactly normal. He drops his bag
onto the couch and begins pulling off his shirt - the dry cleaners is gonna
have a field day with this one.
Chase
is still snickering as he clambers back up the fire escape. Oh, those pictures
are going to be so treasured. Although he is probably rethinking the two
balloons of the same color. Next time, he'll have to be festive and fill one
with black cherry. After a moment, the kid is coming back down the fire escape,
a green packet in his hand. As he climbs through the window, he catches sight
of Brice again, and starts snickering. He just can't help it. "Got the
packet."
*FWOMPH*
Chase gets hit with Brice's shirt, balled up, because Brice just threw it at
him. "Shut up." That's an obvious command - who knows what he'll
throw next time if the otouto doesn't. Perhaps that dagger as it is definitely
exposed now. He lifts a hank of green-striped hair up for inspection, then
turns to glower at Chase. "All right, how do I get rid of the
stripes?"
Chase
peels the shirt off of his face, dropping it to the floor with a snicker. Mouth
opens though, only to be told to shut up, and then it promptly closes once
more. And now he is asking him a question. Eh? "It's still wet, just color
it all in the shower." He rips open the pouch, slips over to Brice, and
then tips it over on the top of aniki's head. "Go take a shower."
*snicker*
"What
the hell-" *foof* He is powdered. Brice coughs a bit as some of the juice
powder gets sucked into his windpipe, waving the floating particles away from
his face. Somehow he manages to whap Tomi upside the head without looking or
opening his eyes. Call it Big Brother Instinct. "Color it all in the
shower? What the fuck does that mean?" Can you tell he's had no experience
with dye?
Chase
is thunked. Yet again. That still doesn't exactly stop him from the sniggering.
He points towards the shower though. "Pretend it is a shampoo... only in
powder form. Go get it wet, and then try to rinse it out as much as possible.
Damn, Brice. Have i turned into your hair dresser now too? If so, we'll just
say the hell with it and chop it all off." Evil grin.
If
Brice's eye could flare red, it would right now. He spins and grabs for Chase's
throat, possitively /growling/. "You /ever/ try to cut my hair you are
dead six times over and buried thirty-six feet under instead of six."
Grrrr. He lets go of Chase then and goes through the bedroom into the bathroom,
turning on the water and pulling off the rest of his clothes, including
eyepatch.
Chase
actually startles as Brice grabs at him, looking rather wide-eyed and for a
fraction of a moment there quite frightened on Brice. "Sorry," he
murmurs after Brice moves off. He looks after the aniki for a moment, and then
returns to pick up the discarded shirt and look about for a hamper or something
to put it in. If there is one thing about the boy, he is actually quite neat.
He
didn't /mean/ to frighten Chase. That look registered and damn, he's feeling
guilty now. He'll probably apologize for it. But not now, as he wants that
stuff /out/ of his hair. So it's hop in the shower, scrub-scrub-scrub as fast
as possible (which of course isn't as fast as most guys, 'cause he's got all
the hair), and then he's out and into his bathrobe, his hair now a uniform
greeny-color. He comes into the main room again, squeezing the water out of his
hair with a towel. "Is it roughly uniform now?" Just please tell him
it's not striped...
Chase
was just getting comfortable upon the sofa, considering rummaging around in the
cupboards for something to snack upon, and then Brice comes back out. He
pounces back up, moving around to take a peek. "Move the towel." But
that green there is eyed with barely contained amusement. A snicker nearly
sounds like a snort as he tries to stop it from coming out. "Uh. Yeah. It
looks good. Uh... It might take it awhile for it to wash out. So, uhm... you
might have to eventually go and get it dyed back to it's natural color at some
point, otherwise you'll look weird." Grin returns, "Your cop
buddies'll sure like this."
He
rolls his good eye at Chase's reaction, picking up some hair again and studying
it. "I want my natural hair back... when you say 'awhile', how long do you
mean?" Kool-Aid can't stay in forever, can it? At least he managed to get
it off his skin, but only by judicious scrubbing that left him feeling kinda
raw. "How weird?" Nope, he still hasn't noticed the piercing. But it
can't be long now.
"Awhile,"
Chase responds. Yep, that explains a lot, doesn't it? "I don't know. Maybe
a month, or two, or whenever." Whenever meaning never. "Weird as in
when your roots start showing and people figure out that you aren't a
natural... moss head." Duck. Run. Scamper. He continues right on for the kitchen.
"Ash'll love it. Think you are really into the... Genbu spirit or
something."
Groan.
This is nuts. "Fork over some cash, you got me into this, so you get to
pay to get me out." Yep, Chase is paying for the dye job, and dye job is
shall be. "I'm not going around with /green/ /hair/." And then the
moss-head comment provokes an unusual reaction - Brice glares, whips the towel
off his head, and flicks the end of it at Chase's derriere. Quite the *snap* on
the rebound. "Ash likes my hair the way it's /supposed/ to be. I wouldn't
be surprised if she went after you herself."
"Can't.
I'm broke," Chase admits with a grin, eyes crinkling in the corners to go
with the grin, along with that black eye. "Spent the last of it last
night. Got any fruit?" He moves on to the fridge to rummage. Well, that is
until he squeak as he is towel-snapped. "Damn!" He turns around,
peering back at him, "Tell her I'll be waiting for her then."
"Then
you're paying me back." No ifs, ands or buts. Or Brice is making him pay
their grocery bills. "Wait a minute- come here." Towel is slung over
his shoulder and he marches up to the otouto, grabbing Chase's chin to make him
look at the elder brother. And he doesn't have his patch on, so it's a little
disconcerting, considering there's literally nothing but skin there.
"What's that? And that?" He means both the black eye and the
piercing. "How did you get those?" Better tell, Chase.
Chase
actually could really care less if Brice has the patch on or not. Been there,
seen that. "OkayOkayOkay. I won't have anything 'til sometime next
week." Although Chase prolly won't be giving Brice any money for a long
time to come, just to see that green hair remain. In the midst of reaching for
an apple, the boy stops as he is swung around and peered at. "Huh?"
Innocent act probably won't work here. "Black eye and one nice looking
piercing, eh?"
Brice'll
just spend his own and make Chase pay him back... or would if he had the money
to spare. "Shit," he curses as he realizes that all his money is
currently tied up (plane tickets cost a lot!). "Great, Amie's gonna see me
like this." Not a happy thought, though this one he can honestly pin on
someone else. He doesn't let Chase go, either. "That doesn't answer how,
and add to that question where. How and where did you get those?"
Chase
would really like to eat his apple now. "Hey, you never know, your sister
might actually like it on you. Never know." Or something like that. There
is also a mental reminder for him to ask Ash to take lots and lots of pictures.
He has quickly learned that they are excellent ways to blackmail. "I don't
remember everything exactly. But I think it had to do with a bar brawl that I
had absolutely nothing to do with. As
for the other... well, it is just cool." And the product of proving
himself to a girl.
"Bar
brawl?" Nope, not letting go yet, sorry Chase. He can deal with the
piercing - he even expected something like this, in a way - but... "How in
the hell did you even get /into/ a bar?" His reduction in age would make
it hard for him to pass as over-21, wouldn't it? "And what were you doing
there in the first place? Remember Chase? Two words: lightweight drunk. Brice
finally lets him go, reaching in the fridge for what appears to be a takeout
Chinese carton.
Chase
smirks. "Yeah, but I was on the street when it happened. I didn't start
it, don't know how it started at all." He shrugs his shoulders
negligently, "Kenny and Travis invited me over. It was cool with them. So
we hung out and talked and... of course it was in a bar, so there was
drinking." Never mind they left him to bumble his way home on his own. But
his eyes light up with excitement,
"We got to talking about all of this stuff, about the oni and stuff. And
they suggested that maybe we should start getting in on them again, you know.
Keeping tabs on 'em and stuff. I'm bounty hunting oni now!" Very excited.
Groan.
Again. "Kenny and Travis. I'm not surprised at all." And he's not.
It's the sort of thing they'd do. "Were they trying to get you in trouble again?"
Even if they weren't intentionally, Brice'd lay even odds that the idea came up
at some point during the evening. Open the microwave, insert carton, and set to
warm. Dinner is served for guys that are now green-haired. And it's while he's
closing the door that he hears about that oni-hunting business and he groans,
slumping over. "God... Chase, how
many heart attacks do you want to give me in one day?"
"Get
me in trouble?" That thought never even occurred to the boy. Heck, Chase
doesn't mind making his way home alone, even if it was Meiyou that eventually
got him there. "Naaaaah. We were just talking." He smirks at that
last though. "Oh, hell. Come /on/. Hell, it is easy as nothing finding
them. Just flip through the phone book mostly. Or look in the usual
places." The Dakota. The Royal Elizabeth. And the Studio. Etc...
"Makes me feel like a real seishi again." But he catches that look in
the other's eyes. "Keeps me occupied, you know? No car stealing or
anything lately."
"Yeah,
looking is easy, but what if you get hurt?" Brice pauses, realizing he
sounds... overprotective. Damn. Well, that is what he wants to prevent; he
sighs. "Sorry, it's just..." He looks up, at a bit of a loss for
words. "I've already seen you get hurt enough for five lifetimes. I don't
want to see it happen again." Witnessing your little brother's death will
give anyone a shock. He looks back at the microwave, starting it, then goes to
dig out a fork (nooo idea how to use chopsticks). "Sorry for yelling at
you earlier." He doesn't sound overly sappy though; he'd hate himself if
he did.
A
protest is already bubbling to his lips, but Chase lets it be for the moment.
He smirks, leaning up against the counter, but reaches over to give a good sock
to Brice's shoulder. "Then I get hurt and you can bitch and moan about it.
Or you can come along and we can heckle the oni about how stupid and idiotic
they are. Because... well, they are. Instead of tomb raiders to Kutouese like
old times, it'll be oni. It'll be great!"
And so
Brice is socked, and then he has to laugh - Chase and serious just do /not/ go
together. "I don't know when I've got off work..." After all, his job
is to /prevent/ things being blown up, not encourage them. "God, you're
incorrigable." And then he grins over at the otouto, reaching over to
ruffle his hair. Badly. Hah. "Although they might have to stand in line, I
might have to kill you myself for your little stunt with the balloons."
Serious
drives him nuts most of the time. Thus, the need to always lighten the mood.
Way, way, way too many serious seishi as it is, especially a certain Genbu in
this very room. "Are you going to have to consult your schedule now?
That's what you get when you become a blue collar worker." Ack! But the
hair is being ruffled and he ducks belatedly to get away, "Alertness
lesson." He'll stick to his guns with that one. He eyes the other's hair
critically, only to begin snickering at the sight. "Damn that was
good." Prideful gleam, and the boy is darting towards the window and the
escape beyond. "Give Ash a big old smooch for me, and /don't/ forget to
leave out my name when you do it. Jya." He is already clambering up the
fire escape, humming some tune or another.