2020-08-10 - Body High

The Firefly is hot and sweaty on a January night. So summer means it's positively roasting. What A/C there is can barely take the edge off. But you don't come to a nightclub in the summer for a cool and relaxing time. Tor leans against a railing, nursing a beer from a plastic cup. He's wearing Bermuda shorts and a black tank top that's loose on his frame, revealing a tattoo of some kind of archaic symbols that's hard to make out in the dark, and his share of scars. His longish hair is pulled off his neck in a loose ponytail situation. He's watching people on the dance floor, but doesn't seem to be waiting for anyone or looking for anyone.

The Firefly is definitely NOT Vic's bar of choice. She works at TiBS, but she's likely more of a Poorhouse (it has totally always been called that) girl. However, she still can't drive, and the club is the closest one to the trailer park, so here she is. She needs a goddamned drink. She can't smoke for 8 weeks, can't lift more than 10 pounds (well, not with her BODY), has to hug a pillow when she coughs or sneezes, and singing karaoke is right out. These are the consequences when you have surgery to patch up your lung after being shot point blank in the ribs.

The Amazonian woman is in flip flops, workout shorts that fall to her knees in sweatshirt gray, and a black, button down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, that looks a size or two too big on her. Tight is not something her body can handle right now, nor is anything she has to pull on over her head. Her torso is still bandaged beneath the clothing, and she moves stiffly as she makes her way in, and moves towards the bar like she's drawn by a magnet. Her hair is down and messy, because lifting her arms to brush it hurts. Everything hurts. Thus the need for some booze.

Tor just happens to be looking Vic's way when she goes limping up to the bar. He pushes off the railing, finishes what's left in his plastic cup and discards it. He walks up to her. "Jesus, what the fuck happened to you?" Well, he can guess who might be responsible, but the how is an open question.

Vic eyes the bar stool as a possible obstacle rather than a relief, not sure she can maneuver up onto it without pain. But fuck it, her feet hurt after walking several blocks in goddamned flip flops. She grunts as she carefully sidles up onto it, before catching Tor's words. She gives him a snarly look, waving the bartender over first. "Whiskey, double, straight up." When the tender goes off to fill the order she looks at the pizza guy again.

"I went to church. Like an idiot." Cryptic? "There was something weird going down at St. Mary's, spotted an out of place guy, moved in to get a closer look, he shot me. Just got out of Addington Memorial," she glances at her phone, "three hours ago."

"Fucking hell," Tor mutters. And then he steps up to the bar and pays for Vic's drink before she gets a chance to. He also orders a beer for himself and slaps cash down on the bar. "Should I be worried?" he drawls. He knows he should. It's a stupid question. But hey, gotta make conversation.

Vic looks like she might argue with him about paying for her drink, but fuck it. She'll take the charity right now. "In this case, I'm really not sure. I don't think I was the target. Rosencrantz was there too and he was fine. The guy tried to stab someone named Roen to death before I took him down." Also known as capping the guy in the back of the head with her Glock while falling in slow motion to the floor with her insides trying to get out. "If he'd been after me, he'd have made sure I was down for good. If he was there for any of Kelly's people, he would have taken out the mechanic when he tried to tackle him."

"Well, this is fucking Gray Harbor. People'll try and kill each other for any damned number of reasons," says Tor as he takes his change plus a good tip. Hey, he works in the service industry. Then he sips his beer. "You got a spare few hundred bucks I can try and take the edge off for you." Hey, he'll buy her a drink, not risk the Dark Men sniffing him out for free. He doesn't go in for that much charity.

Vic would snort, but that hurts too. Her voice isn't as strong as usual, quieter, a bit airier, because she still has to blow into some stupid tube and make a ball float four times a day. "I'd rather we not bring more trouble down on us. Kelly knows an RN, he's gonna have her check on me or something. We have enough mundane shit to deal with, let's not bring Them into it too."

She takes a deep slug of the whiskey and winces as it burns down her throat. "I'm probably going to regret that when I try to walk home." Painkillers and booze? Ayup. "Any news on your front? Kelly visited me in the hospital but he might have been adverse to talking business with me looking like death microwaved."

Tor shrugs and gives Vic a 'suit yourself' sort of look. "Fancypants got me tailing this lady he thinks might be the bag man for the other side. Shouldn't say more'n that in..." ...a completely public place, albeit a loud one. He gestures around him. "Family's on-edge though. I keep telling him, the rank and file soldiers are the last people these assholes are going to go after. They probably wanna replace the higher-ups and take over the muscle that already exists, not threaten the guy who who sells lifted stereos."

"You're right about that. But they did take out Andre, and he was definitely muscle, so that isn't always the case. If we get in their way, they'll mow us down, so watch your back," Vic advises. She wipes a hand down her face and sighs. "I've dealt with worse back in Portland. These guys don't seem quite as...organized as the cartels, so I'm hoping we can get ahead of them somehow."

"Oh yeah, get in the crossfire, sure. They'll mow us down like fuckin' grass," says Tor flippantly. Those who are born and raised in Gray Harbor and who have family going back generations can have a touch of nihilism that comes from essentially teetering on the edge of Hell - or at leaest what feels like it. "But no one is gonna pop my cousin Jimmy when he's emptying the garbage."

"Not unless he did something really, really stupid, no," Vic agrees with a smirk. She takes another slug of whiskey. "If I buy your next drink, can I get a lift back to the trailer park later? I walked here." And it sucked. It sucked real bad, but she was out of booze in her trailer and she can't fucking snort coke right now.

Tor sucks air between his teeth. "Only if you wanna go real soon. I was planning on leaving my car here and walking home unless the scene here was lame. In which case I was just gonna go home and get stoned and drunk." Also in the trailer park. If that sounds overly cautious for a lowlife, it's because all of his non-crime income involves driving. So losing his license or getting his insurance bumped up would cause real problems. And the cops in town know a Lockhart drives that damned Mustang.

"I don't mind if it's real soon. I don't think I can sit upright on this goddamned stool too much longer. I just needed a drink bad," Vic admits with a grimace. She almost flinches at the note about getting stoned. NO SMOKING FOR EIGHT WEEKS. "You don't have any edibles do you?" she asks, hopefully.

"Got some oil," Tor says, "And I could put an order in at the shop for some weed garlic bread." He looks around the Firefly, then sets the cheap beer on the bar. "Fuck it. Let's go. I got better beer at home anyway, and it's not hot as shit."

"Can't smoke for a while," Vic mutters in explanation. "That whole 'lung surgery' thing. And the whole rebuilding half my rib cage thing." She tosses back the last of the double and then gingerly eases herself off the barstool with a sucking of breath through her teeth. "If I had to walk back in this heat, someone would have had to wring me out when I got to Huckleberry."

"Listen, if you need a booze run, just call next time? I mean, it's my fuckin' job." Uber Eats, but still, it IS Tor's job to bring consumables to people so they don't have to go out. "If someone jumped you now, what the hell were you gonna do about it?" He's willing to drive her home and give her drugs, but he doesn't go so far as to offer her an arm. "Sure you don't want me to try and do a patch job?"

"Thank them for putting me out of my misery? This is the second worst I've felt in my life," Vic says with a smirk. He's seen the results of the worst time, that horrific tapestry of torture her back relates the history of. "Nah, no patch job yet. If things ramp up and Kelly needs me at 100%, we'll revisit." She moves with that same stiffness and a bit of a limp towards the door. The latter isn't from the attack, it's from walking that far in flip flops. How do people wear those things for anything other than beach to car and car to beach?

Thankfully, Tor's cherry red 1964 Mustang is only a short distance from the door. It's not a convertible because that is the least practical car you could have on the West Coast when it threatens rain at least 60 per cent of the time. He unlocks the passenger side manually, then goes around to the driver's side. For a delivery boy's car, it's pretty pristine inside. There's a modern stereo and a mount on the dash for his phone, but the other elements of the interior lean in to the original aesthetic - though it's clear nothing is original. This is not a show car - this is a car that gets driven, but it is extremely well-loved. The seats are leather - black with white racing stripes. It smells clean and fresh from a coconut air freshener. There's no trash or dirt to speak of. He clearly puts more into his car than he does into his wardrobe by far. "Don't bleed on my seats," he says as he slips the key into the ignition.

"If I bleed on your seats I can clean them after. I have a special gift," Vic says, gritting her teeth as she opens the door and levers herself down into the mustang's leather seat. It takes her a moment, and a breath, before she can close the door after herself. That might be sweat popping out on her forehead. She clearly should not be out of her home without someone to help her. She's being stubborn and an idiot. Much like most people they interact with.

Stubborn Idiots should be their gang name, really. Tor turns the ignition and the Mustang's engine roars satisfyingly to life. It's clearly a muscle car under the hood, not just in body. He pulls the vehicle out onto Gray Harbor's quiet streets and heads towards Huckleberry. "You look like shit, Vic. You know it was real stupid to go to a nightclub, right?" It's really a short drive to the trailer park. There's not much time for conversation before he's already pulling down the street andt through the gates of the park. "Sure you want some drugs and not for me to just take you home?"

Vic glares at him across the expanse of the car. "I needed something, ok? I can't smoke, which I've been doing since I was thirteen. I can't snort anything, which I've been doing for seven years." She's jonesing, clearly. The white powder has had its hooks in her a long time, much like another cop they know. "And I had no booze in my trailer." And no friends to call to bring her some. "I just want to get blitzed and not be able to feel the goddamned metal holding my ribs together right now, ok?"

Tor again gives a 'suit yourself' shrug to Vic. He's spent enough time around said Stubborn Idiots that he knows it's pointless to argue. Not to mention, he'd likely make similar stupid choices if the situation were reversed. "I think you should stick to weed though. If you ODed on a combo of painkillers and something stronger because of me, it'd be my fuckin' ass in the sling. And I haven't built up enough goodwill to get it out." He rolls down the road, towards an older area of the park with more permanent trailers. His own sunny yellow one with a striped awning has a patio built up around it and looks dated in a charming way. There's a fire pit with mismatched chairs outside. He pulls the Mustang into the parking spot, then circles around to open the door for her. He pauses a moment, then reluctantly offers a hand out to help her up.

Vic stares at the hand a moment, weighing the pros and cons of needing someone's help, vs the excruciating pain that trying to get out of the damned muscle car herself. She finally relents with a wheezy sigh, and takes the offered hand to help lever herself back out. Still better than walking all the way. "Thanks," she mutters, not someone who says that a lot, clearly. "Weed's fine. And beer, please."

"You wanna just drop some of the oil or do you want the garlic bread? I'm getting number one because it's gonna take more than 30 minutes for them to make the bread." Tor helps her up, but then promptly heads towards the trailer. He unlocks the door and steps inside, but leaves the door propped open while he fishes for the weed and beer. "Should I put a fire on?" he calls.

"Oil is fine, but I could go for some garlic bread weeded or non-weeded. I can pitch in, how much you need?" Vic asks as she ambles achily to one of the chairs and settles into it. "Will it make the heat worse, or dry up some of the humidity?" she ventures, in regards to the fire, She toes off her flip flops and stares daggers at the reddened skin between her big and second toes, from the stupid line strap. She needs some slip on sneakers or something.

"How about oil and just some regular pizza?" calls Tor from where it sounds like he's searching for the cannabis oil. He emerges a moment later and hands the bottle down to her. It's a dropper one that's about half full. "Hold a dropper full under your tongue for about a minute." The instructions may not be needed, but he's betting that if she does coke, she's never bothered with the gentlest form of pot.

Vic takes the bottle and gives it a looking over. He's right, she smoked weed now and then in her youth and undercover, but she didn't branch out into the various other forms of it. "Pizza sounds good," she replies, before opening the bottle, filling the dropper, and releasing the oil into her mouth, under her tongue. She just wants the world to slow down and to float away from her battered body for a little while.

Sadly, as potent as the oil is, it's not going to give her the hit of stronger drugs. Tor did give her a strain that's known for stress release, pain reduction and a body high, so the edge will slowly decrease, she should relax at least a little and everything will get a pleasant tingly sensation. He hands her a beer as well. It's just a cheap lager, but it's ice cold. He cracks his own beer and lights an actual joint, seeing as he can actually smoke. Then he pokes at his phone to order food, then sets at making a fire. "I just ordered whatever's on special. It's usually good."

Vic closes her eyes, letting her head rest back on the top edge of the chair, and counts out the minutes mentally. One... This town is a fucking loony bin. Ten...There is inorganic matter putting her ribs back together, that someone like her could use against her. Thirty... She really needs some blow and a cigarette. Forty-five... She wonders if using her telekinesis would make her physical body hurt. Sixty. She swallows. "Thanks. I'm lucky in one respect. Cocaine withdrawal isn't all that bad compared to other drugs." She might get pissy and twitchy, but there's no heart failure or DTs to worry about. She sips the beer, waiting for the effects of the cannabis to kick in. "You been in this town all your life?" she asks.

"Yep. Actually found out I'm a fuckin' Baxter a few months back. Had a fucking terrifying nightmare that I was being ripped to pieces. Happened to mention it to Clayton, and he said it was Baxter-related. Did some digging into my family tree and confirmed it." Tor swings a small hatchet and splits some wood, then starts to build up the fire like someone who could do it in his sleep. Before long, the fire is starting to crackle. It's more for light and to keep the bugs away, along with any hint of damp. It's really warm enough to go without it, but hey, what are summer nights for?

This is new information for the newish arrival. "A Baxter? You're saying that like I have any idea what the significance of that is," Vic points out with a smirk and another sip of her beer. As the fire begins to dry out her clothes and hair from the sweat that had them sticking to her, she seems to sink deeper into the chair as she stares into the flames. "So what is a Baxter?"

Tor snorts softly. "You are a fuckin' outsider, aren't you?" He chucks a few more pieces of wood onto the fire. "There's two founding families of Gray Harbor. Addingtons and the Baxters. Except the Baxters are the hard fuckin' luck cases. Rumour is that we're all cursed cause our ancestor was in league with the devil or some bullshit. And the records are all fractured. If I didn't have the proof of that horrible nightmare, I wouldn't have been able to dig up enough evidence to know for sure."

The whiskey has finally hit, and mingled with the painkillers in Vic's system, and as the minutes tick on, the oil starts to do its thing. "Portland, born and bred. Though been in Hoquiam for the last five years." She listens to the tale of the Baxters and Addingtons and slits one eye open to look at him again. "I'm pretty sure everyone in this town is cursed, because this town is cursed, but that's just an outsider's opinion." She digs her phone out of her shirt pocket and begins poking away at the screen. Is she taking notes? "I wasn't here more than a couple days when I took a jog in that park, and ended up Over There, with some mutant diseased bear thing chasing me, so I get that."

"So multiply all the weird shit you've experienced since you got here and add it to your whole damned life." Which is why not much phases Tor. He's settled into comfortable nihilism. "My mom used to manage a new age shop, so I grew up reading books on all sorts of shit. When I actually realized I could do..." he waves a vague hand, either unwilling or unable to give Glimmer abilities a name, "...it was a little easier to take." He takes a pull from his joint and rolls his neck.

"Portland has it's share of the weird stuff, so I grew up aware of a lot of it but, man, this place, it's like...a whirlpool, a whirlpool of weird that sucks people who can feel it right on in. And then doesn't let them go. I hear a lot about people not being able to leave here. Did that happen to you?" Vic asks, tap tap tapping.

Tor half-shrugs then hesitates before saying, "If I had a better reptuation and any extracurriculars, they woulda made me valedictorian?" Which is his way of explaining his wasted potential and inability to escape Gray Harbor. The fire is crackling happily now, casting a soft glow and releasing just enough smoke to keep any insects away. He does go in to his trailer a moment though, to grab a hoodie. He drops an old tartan printed blanket in Vic's lap.

Vic looks down at the blanket, her eyes focusing more slowly. Thereeeeee's the cannabis oil going to work. She pets the blanket for a moment or two before she spreads it out over her legs. "Thanks," she murmurs. "I was a cop. Did Kelly tell you that? In Portland. Even made detective."

"Lemme guess, fuckin' coke? Or did you do some bad shit so you took fuckin' coke, then got kicked out?" Tor pauses a moment, half shrugs and then says, "Watched a lot of gangster movies." He drops into an old lawn chair that barely looks like it'll hold his weight but seems to be doing okay. He takes a long hit of the joint, then stubs it out gently and tucks it into his pocket. "I don't really know Kelly. Only met him a few times. Used to be I got all my marching orders through my uncle."

"I shouldn't be telling you this," Vic mumbles, before she of course tells him, because she has so many chemicals in her system right now she's a cocktail of no filters. "But I was undercover narcotics, and I had a case, and I called a cop in from Seattle and you know him even and then the very, very bad guys found out I was a cop, and tortured me. But I didn't sell out the other cop, until they threatened my dad. So then I got booted after taking a bribe and Monaghan bailed me out of the situation and is still protecting my father from the cartel. But I'm here, and so is the guy who I sold out, and he haaaaates me so much."

Tor sloouuuches deep in his rickety lawn chair and lets his own cannabis work through his system. Then he just starts laughing in the way a stoned person does. "If it's Viva Las Vega I'll be hella amused." He swigs from the beer. "I got less beef with him than the townie cops who've been on my family's ass for decades. But I can see why you wouldn't wanna be on that guy's bad side."

"Yeeeeeep," Vic replies. "He soooo hates me. Can't say I blame him. I still don't even know what they did to him. And you saw what the fuckers did to me," she points a thumb towards her back. "Seriously, the one guy, their torture dude? Made origami out of a square of my skin. That is SO fucked up man," she says with a half laugh.

"See, that's why I stay put. I go somewhere else? Chances are I'd fall back into this life. And at least in this town, the creepy inhuman forces are the ones who fuck with me, not the guy I'm working for. I respect the fact that if I crossed Felix, he'd probably just have me shot and dumped somewhere and not torture me to death in creative ways." Which goes a long way to showing how fucked up his worldview is. "Devil you know, yadda yadda."

"Yeah, I know. Felix keeps my dad safe, even if I can't go back home or it'll undo that truce. But dad is safe. He doesn't understand my leaving, or why I won't visit, and he's angry and me, but he's alive, and that's important," Vic notes, tipping her beer to the fire as if it has an opinion on the situation.

Tor snorts. "Better than my dad. He's a criminal too, but a bad one. He pissed off my uncle and something went down. Something bad enough that he left town and only comes back for a day or two at a time, maybe two or three times a year? Mostly for my sister's birthday. She's just finished school. My uncle felt bad enough for driving him out that he's kinda taken me under his wing. I mean...most of my family are happy to be fuckin' gophers. I'm okay with that for a bit but I wanna do more." Only time Tor's got ambition and it's criminal.

"M'sure Kelly can find more for you to do if you want. But you might have to wait til we get this Reyes shit settled. Because you know, we all might be dead otherwise," Vic points out, still tapping on her phone and snorting at something.

"Hey, I got this tail job. That's something, right?" Among criminal circles, the Lockharts are known as reliable, but not people you give complicated tasks. Tor's family is really good at moving stolen merch and illicit substances, and being muscle. But other than his uncle, they're not in charge of much.

A car pops and rolls along the gravel road, then stops in front of Tor's trailer. It's a beater of a car, and Tor obviously knows the person. He goes and retrieves two pizza boxes. No money exchanges hands, because there's gotta be some perks to being a pizza delivery boy. He carries the boxes back to the fire area. "We got smoked ham, pear and caramelized onions and a Philly cheesesteak."

"You got good grades and shit, so Kelly can use your brains for stuff I'm sure," Vic notes. Her head comes up at the sound of the approaching car and her hand moves to her back, where her piece is holstered, but the motion makes her wince in pain. Thank God it's just the, "PIZZA! YAY! I am SO hungry."

"That'll be the Kush," says Tor as he pops the two boxes open on the picnic table. Pizza Kitchen is actually not greasy fare. They have more classic flavour combos, but they've got a wood-fired oven, and many of their selections have quality ingredients. It's West Coast hipster pizza adapted for small-town tastes. "If you've never had poached pear on a pizza, I suggest you give this shit a try." He points to that one.

Vic looks dubious about the pear one, but she shrugs, winces from doing that like an idiot, and takes a slice of each. Then she's omnoming like she hasn't eaten anything but nasty hospital food and the occasional smuggled cheeseburger in a week or so. "'S'good."

Tor goes for the pear and smoked ham one too, folding the slice in half and biting into it. He half-shrugs. "I like it better with fresh mozza, but that's me. How's the oil working? Once you get some food on your stomach you can take another dropper. It's not the shit that makes you paranoid. I got enough to actually worry about that I stay away from those strains."

Vic looks down at her phone, arches a brow at what she sees. "I think I probably have enough in my system. Because I've told you waaaaay too much already," she points out, between mouthfuls of delicious pizza. "The only think that would make this better are freezer pops. You remember those? You're so young probably not but they were awesome."

"Too young," Tor scoffs. "Y'know they still make those, right?" And he lifts a shoulder. "I ain't gonna say shit. Gossip is how you get your tongue cut out." Hard to tell if he means literally. They are criminals after all.

"Yeah, still surprised that Ojeda didn't have Vargas cut mine out. I guess he liked what I could do with it back then," Vic mutters. She curls her toes towards the fire, feeling the pleasant freedom of not being completely in her body.

Tor too, is enjoying his body high and the feeling of warm pizza in his stomach, along with the soft summer breeze and the crackle of the fire. He closes his eyes and kicks one foot up on an overturned milk crate. He lets the silence ride for awhile, then awareness slowly creeps back to him. He grunts softly. "Should I walk you back to your box?"

"Nah man, I am not that far down the road. I can walk this. What do I owe you, for the oil and the pizza and beer?" Vic asks, as she slides her feet back into her flip flops and eases herself up out of the chair.

"Not giving you the bum's rush or anything. But if you're relaxed enough to sleep, it's gonna do you a hell of a lot more good to curl up in your own damned bed and take advantage of it. Instead of in my shitty lawn chair." Tor waves off the suggestion of settling up. "We'll worry about it later. I can't math right now."

Vic frowns down at her phone, then does some angry tapping on the screen before shoving it into her shirt pocket again. "Yeah, yeah sleep sounds good. Couldn't get any in the hospital, stupid other patients. Ugh. Thanks man, owe you one." With that, she staggers off to her own trailer with her beer in hand.