[Dane Wayland]

"Okay!" Dane conceded loudly, as the big burly man shoved him out the back door and shut it firmly behind; not waiting for the look of curt disdain Dane tossed over his shoulder as he smoothed at his wrenched shoulder and pulled his coat more tightly around himself. "Don't have..." Dane winced as he took a step forward and his world spun on itself in one, fluid sweep. Pain splintered from within his head and behind his eyes, and he swallowed a mouthful of bile before laughing around the pain.

"Don't have to be a bitch!" He finished, yelling to no one, as he stumbled out of the alleyway and into the street; leaning against the building to keep himself propped upright as he shuffled forward.

He hadn't been to that particular club since his twenty-first birthday, over six years ago. And six years ago, it had ended much the same and yet entirely different. He and Dino had been given the night off to celebrate Dane's birthday — to their mother's verbally-expressed and overly-stressed caution — and Dino had shown him the place. It wasn't the cleanest or most respectable establishment, but it had done its quick duty in getting Dane (legally) plastered for the first time. The night had still been young when he threw the first punch of many that got both Waylands tossed from the place.

He'd been in the corner of the establishment, groaning with his forehead pressed to the cool glass of the table, surrounded by a flock of empty bottles, when he heard Dino stammer out an apology to some man he'd knocked against and spilled his drink on. The man was sizing up to him, but before Dino could even try and placate his way out of an altercation, Dane had slipped from his seat and called out an obscenity to get the guy's attention. Thrown all his weight into one punch across the man's face as he turned, then been too drunk to fight back as the guy retaliated. Dino had to wrench him off before he could cut Dane's face to ribbons with the rings on his fingers.

That had been a good fight. A good night.

They'd ambled home together then, laughing as they swayed and stumbled, but always in turns; able to manage, for when one was falling, the other was wrenching them back up, only for their own knees to give out in turn. It had been a ridiculous ebb and tide of strength and failing strength, and a night Dane was hardly able to remember now. But he still remembered that fitting, unspoken pull and push between him and Dino, because it had been in everything they'd ever done their entire life. They'd always been like that — covering the holes in one another's strengths, without a word.

Dane pulled the figurative (and sometimes literal) trigger when Dino couldn't. When they were seven, and their mama asked Dino to kill the chickens, and he took ages in the barn, fidgeting with the axe in his hand as he looked remorsefully over the breakfast stock, it was Dane who peeked in to see what was taking so long. And it was Dane, in the several years that followed, who would "swing the axe" in various different ways, when Dino found his hands too heavy or weak. Dane, who completed the more brutish missions that Dino would have failed on his own. And in turn, Dino had always kept the pair from hot water when all Dane wanted to do was make a mess. He placated the mob of angry individuals always after his younger brother's head — be it a wronged girlfriend or fellow guild member — and smoothed all the sharp, cutting corners Dane was apt to create.

If Dane had been Dino's axe, then Dino had been Dane's ground.

But now, as the younger Wayland stumbled forward, it was the concrete that caught him instead of his brother's foresight. His fingertips found no purchase on the brick he clawed at on his way down, but only tore open to bleed against the rough surface. His knees knocked painfully against the ground, but he managed to throw an arm beneath him before he could fall forward and bust his face more on the cement. His palms, fingers, and knuckles stung, all at once; itching pain indistinguishable from one another. The man he'd fought with tonight at the club, he'd been wearing rings, too. Just like six years ago. And they'd cut deep and gruesome into Dane's face. His knees protested with a fresh ache as he moved to fall back on his ass and lean against the building's wall. Pain blossomed hot across his face and below his eyes as he threw back his head.

But Dane just laughed; a low, throaty chuckle at first. But as he counted the pains and drew his hands into his lap to run bloody fingertips over the broken skin of his knuckles, the laugh grew in volume until it was happy and loud, deep from his chest and clear, except for the faintest gurgle of blood gathered in the corners of his mouth. He could only open one eye completely, and his vision swam with tears — from laughing, from physical distress, or from nostalgia, he wasn't quite able to tell — but as he looked at the sky above, his shoulders heaved in a small sigh and then another chuckle; quieter and more fond than the last. Downtown was too disgusting and huge for the stars to be visible, but something about the patch of sky (almost orange in color, as the smog trapped and reflected the streetlights) was incredibly relieving and pretty in that moment.

"Oh man," Dane whispered, as he tried to pinpoint every individual muscle of his body needed to push himself back to his feet. He laughed, and didn't even try. He could just stay here for a little while. He'd summon a dog to drag him home eventually. Once he rested a little.... and didn't close his eyes... he could summon Snowcone. She'd help him home, for sure. But for just another moment, Dane would content himself to bleed a little and watch the sky; imagining the small, dazzling pinpricks of white just beyond, smothered from view.

Tag: Open

[Deleted]

Not unusually, Talin found herself as the last one out when closing the bar. Technically, the bus boy was supposed to stay there with her until she had finished her close down process, but it seemed really stupid to her to make the poor kid wait around for her when he had nothing to do. All the patrons were gone by 2 AM or forcibly removed and Talin did not usually leave until 2:30-2:45 AM. She was a big girl, she could take care of herself. She certainly did not need some barely twenty-one year old kid to moon over her for half an hour while she restocked the bar for the next shift.

When she left by herself, she always exited the bar through the back alley their building shared with the nightclub next door. On one side, it fed into the street that was usually busy until about eleven o'clock. The other side opened onto the employee parking lot that you had to take a side street to get to by car. True, the occasional idiot was leaving the nightclub, or more likely, thrown out, via this alley way, but it always seemed safer to Talin than leaving by the side door that fed into the customer parking lot. As her father had always said before he died, "These are dangerous times to be a woman." While, she was not so worried as he had been about her safety, the sentiment had stuck.

As her keys jiggled in the door lock, she thought she heard a sound. Stilling, she glanced up and down the alley. The corridor was dimly lit by the shitty neon blue cage light hanging above the club side entrance door. At first, she saw nothing. Taking a deep breath, she removed her keys from the door, instinctively sliding a few between her fingers. Then, she heard the sound again. Talin's whole body tensed, coiled like a tightly wound spring as she more carefully observed the alleyway.

There, near the street opening, was a dark shape huddled against the wall, low to the ground. Gritting her teeth, she stuck the hand not holding her keys into her purse, firmly wrapping her hand around the pistol she carried in there, but not drawing it out. Key claws in one hand, concealed pistol in the other, she moved slowly and purposefully down the alley towards the shape. As she drew closer, she could tell that the shape was definitely a person hunched on the ground, but they had moved just beyond the reach of the weak cage light and were almost completely concealed in the darkness. There was no mistaking the smell, however. Talin knew blood when she smelled it. The coppery, wet tang was hard to miss.

Chewing briefly on her lip, she debated what to do. This was probably just some drunk asshole that had gotten in some kind of fight and was sleeping it off in the alley. There was enough blood in the air that she could practically taste it, though, and she was concerned that this schmuck might die here if she did not at least check to make sure he was not bleeding out. Haunted alleyways were a fun gimmick, but having the bar and the nightclub shut down for the week it would take their lazy ass police force to close the crime scene meant a week without pay for Talin. Against her better judgement, she dropped her keys into her purse and closed the distance between herself and the person on the pavement. Her grip on the pistol, however tightened. Kneeling down beside them, she felt around with her free hand until she found the neck, checking for a pulse with a sharp inhale, holding her breath while she probed the skin. It was definitely a man. At last, she found the pulse and let her breath rush out in relief. Her eyes were beginning to adjust and she could just barely make out some of his features. Unfortunately for him, they were not good features. Someone had fucked up his face really good.

"Jesus fucking Christ," she hissed, not sure what to do. Should she call him an ambulance? She started to reach into her purse with her free hand, never letting go of the pistol with the other, trying to feel around for her phone. "You had best not die on my watch, pal."

Dane Wayland

[Dane Wayland]

Dane wasn't certain when his eyes had closed. One moment he was watching the sky amusedly and, the next, he'd slumped further down the building with his head tipped sidelong, neck craned at a limp, aching angle. It was the feel of fingers probing against his throat that brought him back with a jolted hum. He forced his one eye open with some difficulty and tried to blink his bleary vision to clarity through the haze of drunkenness; tried to assess the person looming beside him through the dim light of the alley. It was a woman and he glanced about the vagueness of her face, trying to discern if she was pretty or not. If she was pretty, he might let her fuss over him just a bit.

At her hiss, Dane sucked the scarlet spittle from his teeth and let his mouth part into a wide grin. He chuckled, his eye slipping closed again as he raised his head. Die? Him? That was absurd. He'd been scuffed up far worse than this before, a fact evidenced by the mottling of scars covering his body, the various dental implants in his mouth, and the one metal plate in his skull. He supposed he could probably be more careful about taking blows to the face — the guild doctor's work had been very good and he didn't want to repay the favor by messing it up. "You think I look bad?" Dane chortled out, the chuckle causing a tickle of pain in his ribs that made him laugh heartier. "You should see the other guy."

Dane tipped his head back, humming amusedly to himself. The other guy was perfectly fine. He'd been allowed to stay in the club and was no doubt nursing another drink in the same booth Dane had pulled him from. Probably had some giggling babe sidled next to him now, impressed by how he'd beaten little ole Dane to a messy pulp. But Dane hadn't started the fight because he knew it was one he could win. He had wanted it to hurt. Wanted to mask the little pinpricks pf pain that'd come unbidden to his chest with something much more physical. "And by that I mean... he looks so much better."

He lifted a bloody hand to wave flippantly at the woman beside him. "Oh, I'll be alright. I don't live... but a little ways." The Guild had safehouses all throughout California and he'd — for very obvious reasons — become quickly acquainted with the gifted individual in Los Eurosia who could heal him. She didn't like him, which was typical. Dane suspected that she could knit him back together much quicker, much more painlessly, and very likely in a way that left no scars, if she truly desired to. But Dane had pressed his luck, per usual. Made some choice comments that made her dour. He honestly expected that, any day now, he'd limp his way to her and she'd refuse to help him. And he'd be so fucking proud of her when she did. Suspected the only reason she hadn't yet, was because she was afraid of what Dane's father would do if she didn't. Little did she know, Antonio would probably be absolutely tickled to receive the news of his perishing. Was likely praying for a way to get rid of him in a way that would keep his wife from accusing him of having a hand in it.

Dane's smile curled deeper, became more sincere, as he thought of his mama. It wouldn't be the first time she had to swallow the news of a lost son. But she was probably more expecting of his death than she had been of Dino's. With how Dane lived, his getting killed and bleeding out somewhere was just a matter of time; an inevitability rather than a possibility.

"And I've got my dog, or eh..." his brow crinkled, tongue feeling too fat in his busted mouth as he paused to reword the thought "I've got someone I can call. She's seen me home in much worse states. And I've woken up mostly alive after all of them, so!" As if to prove his point, Dane tried pushing himself to his feet. And though he felt like he was being quite fluid about it, the movements were incredibly sloppy and loose as he worked himself up the building he was against. "Besides, I'm not that drun—" The final word was clipped short as Dane tried leaning away from the building and immediately careened sidelong across the alleway, confident grin slipping and arms flung wide as he sought anything to catch himself on.

@talin