2019-10-13 - Encounters on Elm

Alexander has only just returned back home after almost two weeks of not being seen around his house for any but the briefest moments. In fact, Elm Street gossip can't help but note that the woman he was shacking up with went to the hospital with that terrible flu, and then another woman was seen coming in and out - one of those trailer park sorts, don't you know. Current betting is between Crazy Clayton running a bordello, or possibly renting his house out to drug addicts. Tongues are clucked in disapproval.

But he's back now, and Isolde, also out of the hospital, is currently out as well. He's out by the mailbox, checking his (very backed up) mail. It's mostly junk, but he's looking through each piece carefully. Dressed in t-shirt, army jacket, and dark jeans, and looking basically scruffy and shifty. Like normal!

Julia lives a few blocks down the street. However, that doesn't stop her from making the walk, complete with a thermos in hand, her ever-ready weapon in the battle to keep those around her amenable. She's heading for his house anyway, but when she sees Alexander checking his mail, her expression turns a touch more satisfied in purpose. "Hey." she says, approaching him. "I heard people were sick in your house."

Alexander turns at the approaching figure. Since it's Elm, and he's Alexander, he does look a little wary. But when he recognizes the woman, there's a brief smile. "Ms. Velez. Ah, yes. Or, there were. We're both recovered now, thankfully. That is not an illness I'd wish on an enemy." He does look as if he's lost weight, his features a touch gaunt. "What about you? Are you well?" He tucks his mail under one arm, glances at his door. "Would you like to come in?"

Julia admits, "A little under the weather." She cocks her head inquisitively. "Should I take this tortilla soup back to my abuelita, then?" It's slightly teasing, she can't imagine anyone turning down her grandma's soup. "I come bearing a bribe, I wanted to ask you about a person we have in common."

"I would never offend your abuelita in such a fashion," Alexander is quick to say. "I have coffee. It's probably not as good as the soup, but I will trade you." He starts to walk back towards his door, apparently just assuming that she will follow. He speaks like she is, anyway. "Bribes are interesting. People rarely try to bribe me. Mind the cat," he adds, as he opens the door to let her in - hopefully - and there's suddenly a white ragdoll kitty with big blue eyes and a loud voice wanting to know all the things.

She'll follow him in, and offer the thermos as tribute. At the arrival of the kitty, she is immediately charmed, bending knee and offering her hand. "Hey, puss." she greets, and then looks up at him. "I'll take coffee, sure. Thanks." She takes a few more seconds to lure the cat, and then looks up at him. "So let me cut to the chase. I know you're a friend of Violet Whitehouse's. Have you seen her lately? I've tried calling and it always goes to voicemail, and the shop is locked up. Did her sociopathic boyfriend convince her to run off with him?" She sounds skeptical about it being likely.

Alexander takes the tribute with a smile, waving her towards the couch. It's threadbare, but it's clean. The bird sitting on the large cage in the corner whistles in alarm at her appearance, and bobs his head up and down as he stalks around on top of the bars. "That's Blue Bell," Alexander says, with a gesture at the cat who is trying to figure out how to twine around two pairs of ankles at once. "And Luigi," the green bird is also introduced. "He bites strangers, so." You pays your money, you take your chances. He goes to pour them both a mug of coffee. It is cheap, but at least it's hot. As he brings it back, his expression is solemn and sad. "She's gone." A look down at the cat. "Blue Bell was hers. I found her starving in the shop. A door opened up to Over There, and Violet ran through it. Alejandro followed her."

"Gone as in...?" Julia prompts, her eyes narrowing. "Because she and I had both seen her sister Alice around town, only it was under some very...peculiar circumstances."

Alexander gestures. "As I said. Gone. Gone like people in Gray Harbor go. She ran over there. Into the Veil." He looks down at the cat. "I think maybe her sister tried to contact her. Or something pretending to be her sister. But she's over there, now, and I don't know where or how to find her. If she's even alive. And it's been long enough that," he takes a sip of the coffee, his brow furrowing, "if she was likely to come back..."

"Or she may have reason not to." Julia says frankly. "Especially if she's over there looking for Alice. Did Alex go with her, or did he chicken out?" Julia knows he wouldn't, but she can't hide her clear disgust for the man. The cat is given the attention it's due, at least until she's ready to sip her coffee. "Did she leave anything behind? A message, maybe?"

"Alejandro chased after her," Alexander says, quietly. He moves to take a seat on the couch, although he watches Julia with flat, dark eyes. "No. From what Blue Bell told me, it was sudden and unexpected. If you were friends with her, I assume you know how she felt about her sister, and how unhappy she was that she hadn't made contact. It looked like she seemed to hear something, she seemed distressed, spoke her sister's name, and ran for the door. Instead of opening into the real world, it opened into Over There. She ran through, Alejandro ran after, and they were gone."

"Alice was one of two people who kept me alive for the seven years I was 'away'." Julia seems unbothered by the flatness of Alexander's stare. "So I'm guessing you boarded up the store? I was thinking of going to her house to see what I could find out about what happened, but it sounds like there's not much to tell. Unless you think looking there might lead to finding something helpful?"

Alexander's attention sharpens. "You were at the Asylum, then?" He takes a sip, studies her. "No. I didn't do anything with the store. I don't know who her legal heir is...her father, I would suppose. But I was just looking for information. And I don't suppose it would hurt - I'm not sure if she was living there, or wherever Alejandro lived. It's a simple enough check to find out," he murmurs. "But if they had come back, even if it wasn't back to Gray Harbor, I think she would have tried to check in with her cat, and her friends. If she's alive, she's still over there. I can't open doors there."

"Yes." It's Julia's turn for her tone to take on a tightness. "I was sent there when I was eleven. I was released when I was eighteen." The perfunctory way she provides this information suggests she may not want to elaborate at this particular moment. She sips her coffee once more, and remarks after swallowing, "I can."

Alexander winces. "I'm sorry. I've heard...well. It's a terrible place. I know that." He takes a sip. "Violet asked me to go there with her, to free her sister, but we never got the chance. We'd located Dr. Marshall and - his car, apparently - and a map that might lead us there. But other things happened." He frowns, regret shadowing his features. Then his eyes flick up to her again. "Then perhaps the search can re-open. I know what became a door for her to go through. Maybe going through that same door might give us a trail."

"I can make a door." Julia says quietly. "The trick is doing it where it will take us back to the asylum. Or the map you mentioned, if you still have it. I know a little about the car, but not where it is, or if anyone has it. And I have friends who I think would be willing to help and go with us if I asked them to."

"I have an image of it. But," Alexander frowns, "I don't think it's that simple. The map marks several places - and we think that the asylum moves out there. From place to place. I think we need the Dr. and his car to figure out where the hell it is at any given point. Easton Marshall might be able to help. The doctor is - was - is? Sort of? his uncle. It's a long story." A pause. "We don't know that Violet is there, though. Or even that Alice is still there."

"Can you think of another place to start looking?" Julia inquires, nodding to the rest. "I know it moves. My theory is that it's alive on some level." She frowns, setting the coffee down. "I'm pretty sure the doctor is dead."

"Oh, he's definitely dead," Alexander says, dryly. "But from what I understand, that's not actually stopping him from having a robust sort of life, driving around in his car, and things." A shrug. "Shit is weird, Ms. Velez."

"Ya think?" Julia replies wryly. "I think there's a way to find the car, if it's on the other side. There are a few of us who are working on what we can do, together. Learning from each other. So we can use what we have, you know?" She's seated on Alexander's couch, a mug of coffee placed nearby and absent attention paid to the cat as they talk.

A puff, a wheeze, and the closest thing a car - a truck - can possibly make to a fart out its exhaust pipe and there it is, encroaching upon the street's corner, a Silverado so run-down it may have just come out of hell itself and ended up two urban excuses for houses shy of Alexander's porch. The thing moved in a manner lacking any obvious principle of coordination, going through the two way street as if it was one, and brushing back and forth on the road as if it was a broom, sweeping it of dirt. Truth was, there was a drunk on the wheel; a drunk so drunk indeed he was ever two fingers shy of jumping on sidewalks before he stirred the wheel opposite, and the cycle continued.

"Ooooh, sweet, sweeet Mary hooo!, come to me; come to me! We will sail, ooooh, we will sail, tonight, off, to the great, white and blue; whiteee and blue!" a shanty, one sung amidst the loud honking and complaining of passerby's whom he blocked on the twenty mile scooting he performed out across the street, until one of such moments where calculations failed and he mistakenly pulled the stick into neutral, the momentum picking off the Silverado into Alexander's front yard and stopping only after its front crashed into the (thankfully) empty mailbox, "The sweet white and bl--.. FUCK!" pow, kapoot, crash; crunch. Splinters everywhere, the metal of the box dented under a wheel and loud, awfully accented arabic insults even Nasir himself didn't understand as he stumbled intoxicated out of his car, waving that bottle of whiskey at the air almost in defiance to fate's newly dealt hand.

He slammed his truck's door close and staggered - no, stumbled - off to the front, dropping down to baby knees to get an upside-down look of his fenders, where the mailbox's wooden stand had gotten lodged into.

"Piece of shit mailbox right in the middle of the road."

Alexander strokes the cat, who seems a bit needy after being abandoned AGAIN for almost two weeks. "Hmm." He seems a touch skeptical about something in what she says, but before he can elaborate, there's...well. There's a lot of crashing. Alexander jumps to his feet, Blue Bell yowls and races for the bedroom to hide under the bed, Luigi squawks, and it's just chaos as he goes to the front window and says, "What the fuck?"

He opens the door, walking out to stare at the carnage. "That...was my mailbox. You crashed into my mailbox. What the hell."

Julia rises up as well, moving to loiter in the doorway beside him. "Holy shit." she says, eyes going wide as saucers. "You want me to call the cops?" she asks, looking between Alexander and the vehicle like she's watching a tennis match.

Slowly, but most certainly not carefully, Nasir pushes and elbows himself up. He threatens to fall right on his face again a couple of times, but to the mailbox's benefit it wasn't entirely tilted downwards, and he made sure to fix that mistake by leaning into it, giving it the last amount of pressure necessary before the base cracked and it plopped with a empty thud on that patch of grass below. Thankfully, that small sacrifice was the last push Nasir needed to get his intoxicated self up to a slouched stand, and he waved a dismissive, easy hand to Alexander; "Listen man, how can you have that mailbox out in the middle of the road like that? There's children out here," he stutters, and stammers and slurs away most of what he says, the 'c-c-c-c-c-children' made with an accusing index finger out to Alexander.

Nasir's eyes were everywhere, here and not here, dilated. That bottle of whiskey was almost full, so it was certainly not the first. Or, well, most likely not so.

At Julia's offer, Alexander takes a moment to consider it. First, he has to figure out if he's mad or just...exasperated. Then if he wants to be known as the guy who called the cops on Elm Street. Not that he's well liked anyway. But, after a moment, he tells her, "Let's...see if he's hurt, first." He walks over to look at the guy. The final death of the mailbox is watched with a profoundly weary sort of sigh.

"Right. You're drunk. The mailbox wasn't in the middle of the road. Did you break anything, Mr...?" The 'insert name here' is implied.

Julia looks deeply skeptical of the notion of not calling the cops, but she scoots outside the door, closing it and making sure the cat hasn't gotten out while doing so. Then she strolls toward the curb, hands on her hips. Pulling out her cellphone, she turns on the video and starts to record, her expression dry as the Sahara.

And there it was, a scraggly, narrow-eyed drunk in 1080p right out of Julia's phone, in through its camera; Nasir. There was a sheen to his cracked, tanned lips, from all of that nice and abused booze, and that same mouth turned into a quirky, awkwardly amused smile that didn't take too long to evolve into dry, heaved laughing. No actual laughing, more-so heaving, raspy and retched enough so to make him lean forward and threaten to puke right by Alexander's feet. Feeling dizzy, he instead chose to slump back and drop with a sense of finality on his mailbox's head, spreading his legs in such a way it was obvious he wasn't going to be getting up anytime soon without some help.

"What do you mean? I saw it right there; right there, there, in the middle. There was this tall, black thing holding it in place, like challenging me to run it over. So I was like, oh no; oh no, it's one of them mother fuckers, swoosh, ran it over," Nasir slurred in response, suckling in the stacking mouth water on his jaw before throwing out his arm in the air, bottle in hand, victorious.

"I got 'em dude, fuck yeah. Haha, yeah, pow," and there he was, his torso leaning left and right without true aim, his right hand reaching out to finger-gun the once-imaginary figure on the road. He was a trashed mess.

"Fuck," Alexander says, succinctly. He doesn't object to Julia recording the scene, just sort of rubs at his face like 'why me'. "The mailbox wasn't in the middle of the road. You were drunk. Are drunk. Who the hell are you, anyway?" His voice doesn't really get louder as he gets irritated, just more rapid, his hands making short, sharp gestures. "Get up, if you can, and come inside. You can throw up in the toilet or something while I figure out what to do with all of this. You're paying for it, you know," he adds after a moment, with a glare. His hands move, like he was going to help Nasir up, but then he pulls back, a sudden sweat breaking out on his forehead. Nope. No touching happening right now.

"Ugh, you sure you don't want me to call the cops? Or an ambulance? You really should." Julia advises Alexander. She takes a moment to walk around the car and the mailbox to record the damage, and carefully begins to leg her way back to the house. Smile, Nasir! You're on Candid Camera!

And god, how he smiled. In his defense, his teeth weren't entirely brown- they were white, yes, but not entirely either. And as Alexander trotted forth with moving hands, Nasir's right hand outstretched to take his palm that never came, but it was too late - for both Alexander and Nasir - for the latter had entirely surrendered his center of gravity for the idea of a palm, so he fell forward, and never did a moment come where he tried to straighten himself or hold back, no; he planted himself face first into the dirt, the bottle rolling in betrayal out of his fingers and an arm's length of grass away. "Fark," he whined into the dirt, his tall length of soggy self splayed out slenderly across Alexander's front yard. "I'm standing but I can't walk," Nasir added in bemoaned complaint, his mouth shoveling dirt and chewing grass with every word.

"I don't think he's hurt. Just very drunk," Alexander says. He winces as the guy faceplants into the grass. "Sorry," he apologizes by reflex, but he only sounds SO sorry. He skirts around the man to look into the car. "You didn't have anyone riding with you, did you?" He checks for dead passengers, and if he can get into the car, casually tries to pop open the glove compartment and console, looking for insurance cards or anything with this guy's name on it. "Hey, Ms. Velez? I don't suppose you'd be willing to help this guy get to the bathroom?" Because Alexander just can't bring himself to touch him. But she's heading back towards the house, and he doesn't even realize it, with his back turned. So, good luck with that.

Julia sighs, "Yeah, sure." She clicks off her phone and shoves it in her pocket. "C'mon, guy." She bends down, offering her hands. "Don't get handsy." she warns Nasir. "You put yours where they're not supposed to go and I gotta kick you in the junk. Comprende?"

A pistol; an M1911. That's the first thing Alexander finds when that glove compartment heftily comes down. The way the truck was slightly tilted meant it would've dropped right down on the chair if Alexander didn't catch it. The safety was on, and it looked holstered inside a leather gauntlet cut at the top, the kind expected on the belts of uniformed marines. By the driving sit's chair was his wallet, and a single turn to see it open meant pamphlets and useless papers, coupons and paraphernalia dropped out to reveal the more meaningful sources of information; his citizen and veteran ID; his concealed gun permit and a Burger King pass that alleged him to be the Burger Favorite of the local shop, somewhere around nineteen ninety-eight, but there it was, old and worn a card, with a faded pin-up of his face a good twenty years younger. Irrecognizable to the now.

"What," was all Nasir could muster as his hand rose up, clasping Julian's own. He had no true legs or knees to actuate him so she'd need to do some pulling before tendons clicked and nerves led him on in sheer fear of falling, but he'd make it; he'd stagger after her, still at a loss; "Why are you gonna kick my carpenter?" he blubbered amiss, gazing off to the sky, in search of his carpenter.

Alexander catches the gun. He definitely catches the gun, and is even dexterous enough to use his jacket sleeve to catch it instead of his bare hands. The need to do that goes down a little when he finds the concealed carry permit, but he still makes grunt of distaste, and starts to put the gun back in its place. Then he looks up and down the street. Right. It's Elm. He sighs, and drops it instead in one of his big jacket pockets. "Okay, Mr. Ibn Khairan," he mutters, and puts the wallet in his other pocket before following the other two towards the house. "Bathroom is down at the end of the hall. There's a first aid kit in there, too." He does his best to lock the car up and take the keys if they're still in it before leaving the car.

Julia makes a face as she helps Nasir inside, and once she lets him go into the bathroom, she steps back and turns to look at Alexander. "He's hot." she says, "Like, body temperature hot." To clarify. "Um. I should go. But we need to talk again, soon."

Alexander takes it all, adding a handgun, a packed wallet and car keys to his RPG inventory once that Silverado's slapped close. Comically enough, it slides back at the force of the door's closing, getting off the mailbox's dislocated drop and parking itself magically into his porch, as if a decent human being with admirable values had done so themselves, not Nasir. Definitively not Nasir.

As Julia shouldered him along towards the house, he did his best to be self-sufficient in the task; to hold his feet together and buckle them properly with every step, until a doorframe came in the way. He latched onto it, holding himself in place before taking the last necessary steps towards the bathroom. On the way there, he incoherently screams; "For Sigmar!!" before buckling forward and barfing two meals worth of goopy puke in Alexander's toilet. Almost immediately, the rotten and pungent smell of alcoholic refuse permeates the house.

Alexander sighs, heavily. "I don't blame you," he says, a little mournfully, looking at the man sprawled in front of his toilet. "I wouldn't stay either, if I didn't live here," he mutters. Then glances to her with a smile. "We'll talk again soon. What's your number? I'll send you a text, and you'll have my contact info. I'm happy to help in any way with this, Ms. Velez." A glance at the bedroom, where Blue Bell is hiding. "I owe it to Violet."

For the moment, he just lets Nasir get it allll out, just reaching over the man to flush the toilet once between pukes.

"Yeah, uh...I'm out." Julia looks like she's gonna barf. She takes a moment to exchange numbers quietly with Alexander, and then she's out the door, because God help her if she doesn't, this will turn into that scene from Stand By Me.

"Thank you," Nasir grunted painfully for Alexander, his voice an echo that reverberated off the toilet's bowled-out inside due to having his face buried into it, only a finger shy of that flushing water. Some more heaving, some more buckling of his shoulders and squeezing of his fists around the ceramic body, he puked again.

It'd take a while, but eventually he'd dwindle down to looking like a wounded man against the toilet, his gaze lulled off towards a wall with two tears of stewed vomit drooling off his bottom lip, mingling with his messy beard's growth. His torso moved left and right, threatening to loosen out on the floor anytime now.

"Good night, Ms. Velez," Alexander says. Then he returns to the bathroom, turning on the fan (which only works intermittently) and leaning against the sink. The smell doesn't seem to bother him as much as it did Julia, and he goes through his medicine drawer and pulls out a rather extensive first aid kit from under the sink. While the guy throws up, he gets out a cup, and mixes a few things into it. "Here," he says, at last, and hands it to Nasir. "This should help with the nausea."

Spolier: It does not help. It tastes like ass, and pretty much immediately makes him want to throw up every internal organ he has, if he's foolish enough to drink it. Is that the intended effect? Maybe Alexander is more angry than he seems about the whole 'crashed your car into my mailbox' thing.

An outstretched right hand, its palm up. He waves the offer away and sees to a slow, but steady rise from the toilet, with said toilet's aid, that eventually sees him to a full stand. Under normal circumstances, he'd be taller than Alexander, but here he wasn't; here he was slouched and hunched, his shoulders leaning inwards like he's about to perform the dirty work of a deranged lunatic for a scientist. His eyes squinted away at the man's face, and he very clearly tried to discern his features beneath a foggy filter that gave little to no polygons away.

"Man, what the fuck," soon came his complaint, loud and clear to the air, hinting at the first little cracks into his consciousness of self-awareness. His left palm rose as a closed fist and he buried his knuckles hard into his eyes, as to make the blur go away. It doesn't work.

Alexander shrugs, puts the concoction to the side, and starts putting away the kit. His expression is a peculiarly blank one, and when he looks at Nasir, his dark eyes have the impassive focus of a reptile or something else nasty one might find under a rock. "Feeling better, Mr. Ibn Khairan?" He even pronounces it correctly. He steps back a little when the man stands up, feet sliding into something a little defensive. Watching warily for it Nasir's going to turn fighting drunk. "I'm Alexander Clayton," he says. "You crashed into my mailbox. Do you remember that?"

He didn't appear at all to be a threat, no. As cooler minds prevailed, reasoning came to his head and his features softened lightly under the hard light that made for a daunting contrast to Alexander's dark, reptilian stare. Nasir's own eyes weren't nearly as nasty as aforementioned- his vision was taciturn and hopeless, like that of a wolf made lone, and without pack, awaiting merciful oblivion at the hand of fate now rejected. It was with this sense of loss that the amber of his eyes caught his vision, and his brows furrowed; his forehead split in three wrinkled cuts that mirrored the crooking narrow across his nose bridge, all speaking of how lost he was in the notion. "I don't remember that," he admitted, simply. After a mere little second he reached up, playing out a palm across his chest; "I'm sorry," he even admitted, genuinely so. Or, well, as genuinely as a half-drunk half-hungover trashed mess can.

Alexander studies the other man's expression with a frankly rude open assessment. Like he's trying to memorize it, from head to toe. At the apology, he shakes his head a little. "Don't worry about it. I'd already gotten the mail." He's careful not to touch the man at all, but he gestures towards the living room. "If you're done vomiting, clean up and come into the living room. I'll pour you some water and you can sit down a bit. Do you feel like you broke anything that needs medical attention?" His voice is as flat as his expression now that the immediate exasperation has worked its way through. "Mind the cat."

The cat is a beautiful, pure white ragdoll who has crept out from under the bed and is sitting at the doorway of the bedroom, staring at Nasir with blue eyes. And judging the fuck out of him.

Nasir is thusly judged, and he meanders out of the bathroom like a wounded canine. His shoulders were broad, and his form was wide in the body of someone once hard and muscular, now malnourished and vestigial. Still, that width meant he knocked into some paints, perhaps a cave, and knocked his foot into a rise of the floor before reaching the thing most resembling a couch in the living room under the level of depth perception he mastered at the time.

It could've well been the coffee table, if there was one.

Regardless of where he sat, if the foundations didn't give in he'd let his legs loosen out and feet turn inwards just like his shoulders did, head hanging from his neck as it centered his attention on the floor, then the cat, then fuck that and so the floor again. "My pride's broken, call the paramedics."

Alexander continues past the living room into the small kitchen. Luckily, he seems to have a minimalist aesthetic - there's not much to crash into except that coffee table, and it's decently sturdy. Although he does wince when the man drops into the couch with a thud. "The paramedics I might call would probably cover you with glitter and give you funny nicknames. Not great for pride injuries," he mutters. He pours a glass of water and comes back to offer it. "So. Gonna tell me why you were driving drunk off your ass this evening?"

He reached out with his right hand, its palm pressing against the table flat. He grasped at said table, confused, why wasn't the glass already in his hand? Then some search ensued. A little bit to the left, a little bit to the right, and he almost knocks it off Alexander's hand with how his wrist flailed in. He did, however, stop, and took the vessel of water out of his hand with a thanking bob of the head. He brought it to his midriff, using both palms to hold it steadily in place rather than threaten to let it slip right off his fingers. "You know, man; you know, you know how it is," a beat, to take a sip of water and sample its taste with his tongue, bringing nothing but the alcoholic flavor still lingering in his mouth back down his throat; "Just the stuff, you know- the black things. Nameless, popped up all over again, you know; you know how it is. Blood, bullets, kids. Just, drank a little bit man; just drank a little bit, I don't know what you're talking about, wasn't drunk out of my ass. Just fell asleep."

"Yeah, I know how it is," Alexander says, after a long moment. He watches Nasir impassively. "You fell asleep in your car. While driving it. Drunk." Each word uttered without room for compromise on those particular facts. His voice softens a little. "Your car's probably fucked. Do you have someone I can call?"

Nasir shook his head, feeling it all being thrown right on his face making him crunch his expression away in distaste. "What the fuck do you want from me man? I mean, mister 'Clayton'?" a pause, and he'd suddenly over-enunciate his name; "'Clayton'," in a mocking light. The realization hit him and he was soon laughing to himself as a fit of amusement. "Who the fuck calls their kid 'Clayton'?" the Arab man pushed himself off the couch soon after his claim, doing so with deft speed but not deft movement, since he immediately threatened to fall over either left or right, it didn't matter- he'd fall over, eventually. Until he started moving, towards his door; towards the exit, unless stopped. It wouldn't be hard to do just that. "Don't have anyone, don't want anyone; don't worry either, I'll fix the car. It's my thing. Show me where it is."

"My name is Alexander Clayton." Hey, look, emotion! It's irritation, but it's emotion. "It's not a weird name." He stands up and follows the other man, his hands out, but not actually willing to touch Nasir even enough to stop him. "Even if you fix your car," and for some reason he doesn't see this as impossible - it might be because his shine is very bright - his voice still clearly carries the hint that he thinks it's a stupid thing to do, "you sure as hell can't drive it anywhere." Not least of which because Alexander has the keys. So, he lets the guy totter out to the porch where the car is entirely inappropriately parked. "But hey. Knock yourself out."

Alexander didn't need to say it twice. Right as he made that last, failed step off the porch he dropped and fell face-first into the ground, smacking his face so hard onto the corner of the pavement he left a red, wedged wound drastically embedded on his forehead. If it hadn't been for that last-second turn of his shoulder he would've most likely had that corner go straight into his eye and thought-blender of a brain. As if a mummer in a display of physical antics, he rolled while grunting the pain away, standing up with magically feigned flare as he resumed his way towards the car.

His glow was there, yes, bright or not the confidence in which he walked towards the vehicle denoted one very important fact, that in him lied the possibility that he could paint the Silverado red and it'd somehow go faster because of it. He didn't quite walk to the hood, more-so crashed into it with the need for its support. His left hand curls into a fist and he slams it into its edge, it with enough force - and knowhow - to prompt the lid to lift, unleashing a hot release of exhaust air on Nasir's face. Somehow, by the unphased look on his drunken face, he must've been very used to such foggy heat. "Fuck, the crankshaft again," he complained almost immediately, sticking a hand in through the metallic innards of the engine to fumble around.

Alexander closes the door behind them, and winces as Nasir pitches forward and probably gives himself a solid sort of concussion. He doesn't try to help the guy up, but leans against the closed door, and crosses his arms over his chest, just watching the show. At least until his text alert goes off. Then he casually checks his phone while keeping an eye on him. "I know a good mechanic. If you end up needing one," he puts in, helpfully.

Nasir reached out with his right, freehand - the left was buried still in his truck's panties - and made for a wave that sought Alexander's attention. "Hey man, listen," he'd call out, somewhat distracted with the deed at hand. Especially after aloud thud that culminated with him pulling out a sizeable splinter that he threw aside before his palm went right in deep again into the steelcorpse. "Can you go like, make yourself useful, I've got a couple of beers in my trunk. Corona-- some cheap shit, but this might take a while. Got a girlfriend or something, dude? Probably not, you look like a bit of a freak," Nasir's assumptions came with the unclear instruction of his right hand, trying to motion indeed to his trunk but pointing down the road instead, entirely off-target.

"My name is Alexander," Alexander says, but wearily, as if he does not expect Nasir to car. An arched eyebrow. "...are you actually asking me to fetch you beer when your drunk driving has already ruined my mailbox?" He stares with a kind of open fascination. "I have a girlfriend," he adds, in a mutter.

And then he goes back to the trunk. If nothing else, it gives him an excuse to poke around in there, so he pops it open and sees what's what.

"Yeah, yeah whatever Clayton," a brief pause, some pulling; some re-assorting, and he added in more sardonic amusement; "Fucking Clayton," and his head shook, almost disbelieving still of the name choice. His face was split in hapless joy, and his eyes so watery in it that laugh lines caught at their edges. Nasir pulled at the car's head gasket, feeling its stiffness, finding it loose and unacceptable. He pulled a swiss knife out his backpocket and deftly tilted it to the side with enough force to find the 2x1 screwdriver tip seeing itself pop out for him to unscrew and re-screw certain edges of the gasket frame, fitting it better.

In Nasir's trunk exactly what one would expect from a now-drunk driver, a small freezer full of ice and enough cans of Corona in to liven up a party. Only that they now served to liven up his liver. A couple of tires without wheels, a defleshed air conditioner against a corner and a toolbox on its opposite. It all screamed engineer or mechanic, and right as Alexander fished through the Silverado roared to surprising life.

"There we go girl, that's it; that's right. Let it all out-- daddy fucked it up, I know; I know, I get it. My bad. Yep, new oil change, you deserve it baby."

"Why did you ask if you didn't want me to answer?" Alexander roots around in the trunk a bit, then looks up at the sound of the engine. "Huh. That's impressive." He stops to text a bit, then comes back with a single beer. Which is offered to Nasir. "Congrats. Now. Where am I driving you?"

Nasir shook his head, waving the beer away; "That's for you Clayton," he re-asserted, meaning to reach out and give the man an earnest pat on the shoulder. "Thank you for not calling the cops on me, or your supposed girlfriend, she'd probably kill my ass. Yeah, if you've gots a girlfriends then she's gots to be as freaky as your cat, and that means she'd kill my ass. Yeah, she'd kill my ass," there was no room for questioning it there, she'd kill his ass rightly, and Nasir's head never ceased to bob up and down repeatedly while holding out his right palm, towards him. "I heard you scooping through my truck, you didn't grab my gun and shit right? Because you don't look like the type that needs guns in his hand, like you'd shoot yourself first before hitting an actual person-- and you're not driving me anywhere. Ol' Graga, she doesn't like strangers on the wheel."

Alexander steps away sharply at the attempted pat on the shoulder. "Don't touch me." His expression twists in a moment from its neutral blankness to something both panicky and aggressive all at once. "Don't. I don't like to be touched." Which probably doesn't help make those claims about a girlfriend any more credible. He bares his teeth at the offered hand. "I've got your gun. Your wallet. And your keys. I can drive you somewhere and you can stay the fuck there until you sober up, or you can take your apology and stuff it up your ass because I will be calling the cops on you. Choose."

It didn't matter that Alexander moved away, the patting needed to happen. One had to understand- Nasir was no longer Nasir, he was a husk of meat with beer on the wheels, and so when his arm swung forward to get that show of comradery on Alexander's shoulder bone it went down, and down, having missed its mark, until it hit the front of the car so loud the metal rung. He hissed, crunching his nose and eyeing Alexander with skepticism; "You're fucking crazy Clayton, shit. Maybe you are a Disney villain after all," he reasoned, finally looking back at the truck as he popped the lid back down, letting it click into place. "Fine, but if she turns off on you you're turning it back on yourself. I'm telling you, she - Graga - she doesn't like Crazy Claytons on the wheel," he surrendered, finally waddling his way onto the passenger sit in defeat.

"I also don't like that fucking nickname," Alexander says, with something like a growl. "And I'm not a Disney villain. What the fuck does that even MEAN? You are an asshole," he tells Nasir, even as he gets into the driver's seat. He tries to make the car pull carefully off his lawn, already anticipating the horrible crunch of his poor mailbox being even more destroyed. "Now," he says, through gritted teeth, "Where. Are we. Going?"

The growl seems to do the opposite of the intended intimidation on Nasir, who instead cracks up and laughs on his sit, shaking his head in unbridled amusement, having received all the right kind of reactions from Alexander; all the ones he fished for, at least. "Hey man, listen, calm down," was the way he approached it, investing in a more serious, apologetic expression as he straightened himself on the chair, yet one couldn't miss that hinted, hidden amusement in the twitch of his worn lips. "Alexander, your name is Alexander," Nasir asserted, motioning with a finger at the handbrake as if to solidify Alexander's claim. "Huckleberry, trailer place, you know it?"

Because of course it was fucking Huckleberry.

"The trailer park." It's flat. "Of course you live in the trailer park." Not that Alexander can throw stones; he's not really on the good end of Elm (to whatever extent Elm has a good end, which isn't much), himself. "Fine." He doesn't look particularly soothed by the apology, he just drives. Carefully, and like a good driver who doesn't plow into people's shit. At least it's not far, and he's soon pulling the car into something that's largely like a parking space. "Okay. You're home." He takes the gun and the wallet out of his pocket, hands each one carefully over to Nasir. "You gonna be okay?"

Nasir reached out like a cop about to get dismissed out of the force, taking his gun begrudgingly and wallet as if it was his badge. He simply slipped the gun into the glove compartment and slapped his wallet open, fishing through a couple of bucks to take out ten, holding them out towards Alexander in a roll. "Here, for your cab. Thank you man-- yeah, I'll be fine. You didn't need to do this, you know? I puked most of my shit out in your bathroom," still, there, in the deflection of his goodwill lied genuine thanking, and he dug through that still-open glove compartment to fish through a mess of papers and receipts in order to take a pencil in hand, as well as a yellow little note. He slapped it on the banister and popped the door open. "Leave your number somewhere here, and I'll call you later-- I'll make it up to you. Or don't, up to you man," and with one foot out of his truck, he didn't much step out of the vehicle but rather staggered out onto the dirt path that led to another dirt path which led into another dirt path that so happened to connect to his home. "Oh, and throw the keys in the trunk!" he called out as he walked off, going left and right in misdirection just like his car did before crashing into his mailbox.

He'd probably crash another mailbox with his face too.

It's probably a sign of Alexander's lingering irritation - or just the fact that cash is tight - that he actually takes the ten and stuffs it in his pocket. He also does leave his number and name on the note, before climbing out. The keys get tossed in the trunk, as requested. "You're welcome," he mutters. "Try not to smash anything else open. Including your goddamned face," he says, as the guy wanders away. There's a shake of his head, and then he trudges back away from the trailer park towards his home. One of the few benefits of being Crazy Clayton? He doesn't get mugged on the way there, because he's a familiar sight, and has a reputation for having nothing worth stealing and being crazy.