ArchivedLogs:Unhappy Trails

Unhappy Trails
Dramatis Personae Toru, Trib, Frank Jones	2013-10-10 Sometimes, you just shouldn't go home again. Takes place right after Aunt Sonia's call.
Location <NYC> 311 {Trib} - Sunrise Apartments, Passaic, New Jersey
As the weather turns colder, Toru has taken to wearing socks and a set of blue flannel pajama pants to bed, though they look a bit silly even for him. Still, when Trib returns to bed after taking that phone call from his aunt, the teen rolls over with a quiet grumble, looping one fabric-clad leg over the boxer's ankle and burying his face against whatever skin ends up closest to it. "Cage 'zza real fuckwad," he mumbles, and for a minute it almost sounds like he could just be sleep-repeating fragments of overheard conversation, but a brief delay interspersed with a few yawns eventually heralds a slightly more coherent, "What was that all about?" Trib is not as bothered by the cold as Toru, and is blissfully nude when he returns to bed, sliding under the covers and settling in. The teenager's face lands in the boxer's armpit, and his ribcage vibrates with a silent chuckle before he re-adjusts so that Toru's head rests against his shoulder. "Wasn't Cage," he says, pulling the smaller man into his side and inhaling deeply. "It was my Aunt Sonia. I gotta go to Passaic in the mornin', on account of my dad bein' a real dumbass an' not takin' care of shit." He says this matter-of-factly, punctuated as it is by a wide yawn. "You can come with me, if you want." /That/ information is met with a few moments of silence from Toru, and the teen gradually rolls onto his back, running a hand through his hair and letting it drop to the bed in an awkward position. "Oh," is his initial reply, but it does, if nothing else, sound a lot more 'awake' than his previous commentary. "Guess I should probably actually wake up," is added, after a moment. And with a bit of a grunting noise, he stretches his arms up over his head, legs downward, but does find himself draped halfway over Trib again even despite his suddenly serious demeanor. "...You sure you want me along? I mean, you seen what happens when I meet your people." There's a certain possessiveness to the way he grips the boxer in his arm, teeth gently gnawing on the shoulder there. "I ain't against it or nothin' but that's. ... I feel like that's kinda a Step." With an audible capital S. "We got a few hours before the train," Trib rumbles, remaining still as Toru shifts and stretches. His arm comes around the teen when he re-settles, and the shift of his body indicates the attempted roll of his shoulders. He's quiet for a long moment, his beathing slow enough that he might already be asleep again. Then he speaks, and his voice is a bit gravelly. "I wouldn't ask you if I didn't want you to come," he says, and he chuffs a hard sort of laugh. "An' my dad ain't like most people. You'll do fine." Another long silence. "It ain't goin' to be as big a step as you're thinkin'." It sounds a bit resigned. As he considers the matter, Toru makes his way up on top of Trib, legs falling on either side of the boxer's waist and arms looping up to wrap underneath his neck. The teen rests his head on Trib's chest, closing his eyes and quietly just listening to breathing, but eventually he lets out a long breath. "I just ain't really." He pauses, frowning. "...I ain't good with my own parents, sometimes I maybe forget that other parents ain't the same." There's another long moment of silence, but finally he gives a little nod against the larger man's skin and mumbles, sleepily again, "A little more warning woulda been nice but that ain't your fault. An' if it sucks I can always just come back." Whether it's faked or genuine, he's at least mostly succeeding in sounding optimistic. "This just gonna be a day trip or am I gonna need to pack a bag?" "My dad ain't like /anyone's/ parents," Trib confirms, his chest hitching in a silent laugh. "An' he ain't good with /nobody/, so you ought to get on like cats an' cream." He sounds a bit wry (or maybe bitter) as he declares this, and his hands come up to latch onto bony hips, holding Toru in place. "It's goin' to suck," he says, his smile toothy in the darkness. "But we ain't stayin' the night. My aunt wants me to come by an' tell her about my new job, but fuck /that/. It's just her tryin' to get me to stay over, so she can load me up with more fuckin' guilt about movin' to the city." He shakes his head. "We /ain't/ fuckin' stayin'." As is his tendency, Toru just wriggles rebelliously when his hips are grabbed, biting back a grin. Lifting his torso back up, he moves in to give Trib a light little kiss on the neck, followed by a series of further such exploration, at least until the aunt gets mentioned. This elicits a raise of the eyebrows, one evnetually lowering while the other stays lifted, and he brings his head back to a somewhat more chaste position. "You Catholic or somethin'?" The eyebrow flicks upward one more time before lowering again, though he does have a hard time holding back a quiet chuckle. "Your dad, uh, he knows you're into guys, right?" Trib snorts when Toru begins to wiggle, his hands clamping in place to pin those bony hips to his. "You're gonna start something we ain't gonna have time to finish," he rumbles, flexing his fingers into narrow buttocks warningly. Neck kisses are permissable, though, and his tips his head to accomodate Toru's explorations. The question of religion gets another burst of laughter. "Close," he says. "Technically, Pa an' I are Episcopalian, but Aunt Sonia is Eastern Orthodox. She can wield guilt like a fuckin' lightsaber." The second question gets a long pause before Trib speaks again. "Sort of," is an unusually uncertain-sounding answer, and Trib shifts his weight. "I mean, I /told/ him, but I ain't sure if he really /heard/ me." Toru does settle a bit after that warning, but he does reply - with some exaggerated sulk - "You oughtta know by now I ain't gonna let you hold me down without a fight." Still, any sulkiness in tone hasn't crept into his mood at all, if the fact that he punctuates the remark with another kiss is any indication. "Sounds like we know where you got your communicatin' skills," he notes, and this time there /is/ a hint of something like resignation to his tone. Finally settling down, he gives an insistent little pull at his hips, moving to slide back to Trib's side and rest in the crook of the larger man's arm. "If shit goes sour I'll try not to beat up your dad," he mumbles, settling back into sleepy-mode as his eyes slide closed. "Few more hours. Set your alarm." The alarm came earlier than expected, much to the irritation of those awakened by it. It wasn't a /sluggish/ start to the day, but there wasn't as much speed used as there might have been. (Well, there was a bit of rowdiness during the morning shower, but that didn't really /count/.) Still, Trib and Toru managed to make it to the station in time to catch the first train out to the wilds of New Jersey. A train ride which was probably much shorter than Toru was expecting, only being about an hour or so, including the change of trains in Seacaucus. Luckily, the number of people /leaving/ the city at that time of day is blissfully minimal, so the ride was fairly uneventful. Trib ensured that Jersey lived up to the glamour, taking Toru on the bus from the train station to his old neighborhood, which looks surprisingly suburban, with rows of tract houses and lots of manicured lawns. A lot of them show damage from the recent storms, with tree limbs down and damaged fences, and it's when the bus pulls to a stop in the worst of this that the boxer stands up, hauling Toru along. Trib has been extra silent through most of the morning's activities, communicating with Toru mostly in a series of grunts and occasional manhandling that only increase as the bus nears their final destination. Now, on the sidewalk, he nudges Toru in an easterly direction, and begins to lead him presumably towards his childhood home and not Aunt Sonia's. He chews his lip thoughtfully as they walk, thunder gathering on his face as he thinks. Then he's stopping dead, standing up straight and inhaling sharply. "I gotta tell you somethin'." In typical Toru fashion, the teen spent most of the train ride either sleeping or pretending to do so, leaned over to use Trib as a giant pillow. His commentary on Jersey has been limited to a few remarks about it not being /that/ bad after all. Once they're up and walking around, he's mostly running on auto-pilot, though it's hard to tell whether that's due to lack of sleep or due to not wanting to be where they are. And because of this, when Trib stops, Toru actually takes another few steps before realizing that walking time has stopped. Still, that puts him in a good enough position to turn around, hands crammed into the pockets of his hoodie (with hood pulled up), and looks up at the boxer with his head tilted to one side. His expression is a bit guarded, but he does his best not to sound more concerned than wary when he replies, simply, "What's up?" Trib scowls into the air for a moment, narrowing his eyes at the approaching intersection. He jams his own hands into the pockets of his army surplus jacket, and hunches his shoulders. "My house is just around the corner," he rumbles, his brow lowering further. "It ain't like the others in the neighborhood." An eyebrow is lifted at that, as Toru shifts his weight from one foot to the other; the explanation (or lack thereof) actually elicits a hesitant smile. One hand gets pulled up to rub the back of his neck, and he just sort of cautiously asks, "So like, what, yer dad gets design tips from Lady Gaga or somethin'?" His neck gets another little scratch, the teen looking around for a moment before shoving that hand back into his pocket. "I mean I ain't like the other people'n this neighborhood either, prob'ly." "Naw," Trib says in an exhale. "It ain't like /that/. But it's kind of fuckin' weird anyway." He wrinkles his nose, considering for a moment. "You'll see," he says, shrugging his shoulders. "But you can't make no fun of it," he warns, tipping his head meaningfully. "It's stupid as shit, but Pa is really proud of it. He's been workin' on it as long as I can remember -- " the boxer breaks off with a snort, and shakes his head. "You'll see," he repeats, and begins walking again. "An' there's plenty of Asian families around here. You ain't /that/ fuckin' unique." That /last/ remark is met by the teen bringing up one hand, pulling down his lower eyelid and sticking out his tongue. "Well fuck, if I knew you felt that way I wouldn'ta come all the way out here, you dick." Despite that, though, Toru turns back towards their destination, catching up with Trib and bumping up against his side all affectionately. "I ain't gonna make fun of your dad's place, I still dunno if I even wanna be /doin'/ this." He lets out a sigh, looking up at the sky for a minute as he trudges along. "I mean, I'm gonna /do/ it, I just ain't lookin' forward to it." Trib returns the nudge, the corner of his mouth lifting a bit. "It ain't goin' to be that bad, pup. My dad...he ain't scary or nothin'. Just..." He trails off, his mouth tightening for a moment. "You'll see." Around the corner, it becomes very obvious which house is the one that's different. Only one house has a split-rail fence, and a /wagon/ in the front yard. Or a gate with an arch and a piece of hanging wood with 'The Jones Spread' burned into the face. On its small porch, there is a straight-backed rocker that looks like it might be a hundred years old, and a barrel serving as some sort of end table. Oh, and there's a tree leaning against the house. You can't miss the tree, or the hole it's knocked in the roof. Trib surveys the house for a long moment, his teeth grinding audibly as he asseses the damage. "The wagon's new." As Toru approaches the house, he is a bit too boggled by the sight of the scenery to even say anything at first. He slows his pace a little, mouth hanging just slightly open as he stares at the building. He also lags behind for a moment, but once he realizes that he actually /is/ seeing what he's seeing, he picks up the pace again, trotting a few steps forward to catch up with Trib again. "Uh." Clearing his throat, Toru fights back a laugh; and while the laugh doesn't come out, it is easy enough to tell that it's trying to. "Fish, why does your dad live on a movie set?" A pause. "Is your dad /Wyatt Earp/?" He injects some awe into his tone when he asks that question, but then segues into a slightly more serious question. "At least there's still places around without those bullshit homeowner association things." "Oh, there's a homeowner association," Trib says, and his tone is a little irritated as his gaze fixes on the tree once they're in the yard. "Pa gets some sort of special exemption or somethin', 'cause he writes those crappy fuckin' books." He doesn't sound particularly happy, and he abandons Toru on the sidewalk as he crunches out into the lawn to approach the tree. He stares at it for a couple of minutes, and it looks like he might actually start punching it or something. Then he turns around and stomps back to the sidewalk. "They wouldn't let him put up the fuckin' clapboard, thank fuck." He leads the way onto the porch, forgoing knocking and pushing open the door. And inside is decorated to match the exterior. The floor is hardwood, the small living room furnished with pieces that look more suitable for John Wayne than having the neighbors over. There's a TV, but it might actually also be antique, and is shoved into a corner. To the right, a plain-looking wooden dining table is surrounded by cane-backed chairs and illuminated by a cast-iron light fixture. The kitchen beyond the living room looks the most modern, but the counters are littered with jars and dishes that seem appropriate to the rest of the house. It doesn't look messy, but the place is definitely untidy, and there's a smell of damp and a tang in the air that aren't terribly pleasant. And somewhere, in the house, a typewriter clacks away. An actual typewriter. "The hell is a clapboard?" Toru tilts his head to one side, though he also doesn't seem to care much whether he gets an explanation or not, and once Trib leads the way to the house he's following behind the taller man at a brisk pace to keep up. When they go to enter the house, he hesitates a little, but does finally follow Trib's lead. His shoes get slipped off at the door - force of habit - and he pulls his hood down, just looking around the entryway quietly for a moment. "Trib..." While he's keeping the volume low, his voice has that same 'fighting a laugh' tone to it, but he quickly stops himself, grinning a little and scratching his cheek. "...Nothing." And there, he clears his throat. "It's nothing. Um. He, uh, does know we're coming, yeah?" "Don't say it," Trib warns, shrugging off his jacket and throwing it over the back of a chair. "I told you it was stupid." He scowls around the living room, and tightens his mouth a bit. The question gets a shake of his shaggy head, and he rubs a finger under his nose in an annoyed-looking gesture. "I don't let him know I'm comin' 'cause it wouldn't make a fuckin' difference." He leans a bit to look down the hallway towards the clacking. "PA!" he roars suddenly, his voice overloud in the small house. "I'm home!" The clacking stops, and a few seconds later, a smallish middle-aged man comes into the living room. There's not much to mark him as Trib's dad -- he's too short, and his hair is a sandy sort of color. But his eyes are the same as the boxers, tired-looking though they are at the moment. He's dressed in jeans and a Western-style shirt with intricate embroidery on the yoke. He blinks at Trib owlishly, and frowns. "Retribution? What are you doing here?" Then he flicks his gaze to Toru, and he frowns again. "You need money for the cab driver?" "'m not gonna /say/ it," Toru notes under his breath, with no small amount of petulance. "I just wanted you to know I was /thinkin'/ it." The remark about Trib not letting his dad know when he's coming, however, is met by a literal facepalm as Toru grumbles, "Fucking communication issues, Jesus Christ." He soldiers on, though, but flinches bodily at that sudden shout, lifting a hand to hold over one ear. "Dude, what the hell!?" This time his voice /does/ get raised, though whether the head of the household hears him or not remains to be seen; and suddenly the man himself is there, and Toru is standing stock still for a minute, looking the older man as he addresses Trib-- and the question just has him clenching his fists, tensing up for a minute before abruptly whirling around to stomp back towards the front door, though he does stop after only a few steps. "Fucking /hell/, Trib, you gotta start actually tellin' people things!" "God damn it, Pa," Trib growls, when Toru explodes, glaring at the older man as he follows the teenager. "I fuckin' /told/ you about Bones a fuckin' /month/ ago." He looks like /someone/ is going to get the brunt of his wrath, and Toru seems to be the likely candidate as the boxer clamps his hand on the teenager's arm and HAULS him back into the room to deposit him in front of his father. "Now fuckin' try it again." It's not clear who he's talking to, from the way he glares at both of them. Frank makes a face at his son's admonishment, a sort of blank, slow blinking. Then recognition dawns on him, and his jaw drops slightly with an aaah sound. "Oh, yes. Your...what do you call it? Is it boyfriends?" He holds out his hand for a handshake, offering Toru a bright smile. "I'm Frank Jones. It's nice to meet you." Then he's looking at Trib. "Have you boys eaten? There's beans and coffee on the stove, and I can warm some biscuits in the oven." To his credit, Toru does allow himself to be hauled back with little enough effort that he actually does stumble in his attempt to keep up with the pulling. He even eventually drops the sour expression from his face, though he isn't exactly smiling, either. But still, Frank's attempt at fixing the situation is met with a brief silence before Toru lets out an exasperated sigh. "/Yes/, he's my fucking /boyfriend/." Another sigh, there, and he gives another shake of his head before leaning against Trib, as if for support. "I could probably go for some coffee." A look given up to Trib, there, for confirmation. And then a pause, before he launches off into a ramble that eventually peters out at the end; "...y'know, a friend of mine melted his coffee maker keepin' it on the stove. With the electric burners and all, he forgot it was on and moved it over and it. Melted." Trib makes a warning growl at Toru's response to Frank, and his eyebrows knit meaningfully. He accepts the lean, reaching up to drop his hand on the teenager's shoulder. It's not exactly a /clamp/, but he's got a good grip. "Good pups get treats." It's barely audible, and meant for Toru's ears alone. Clearly, since Frank shows no signs of knowing Trib's even spoken, already heading into the kitchen. "I don't use a coffeemaker," he says, talking to the room ahead of him as if Trib and Toru were /there/ instead of behind him. Trib encourages the following by stepping after his father, once again attempting to haul Toru along for the ride. Meanwhile, Frank continues talking. "I don't really like the taste of coffee from coffeemakers. I prefer the old-fashioned way." Sure enough, there is an antique-looking coffee pot on the gas stove, and a cast-iron pot that bubbles and emits a steam which smells of savory beans. Frank moves to the cabinets, extracting a pair of tin cups and setting them on the counter. "Do you take sugar?" he asks politely. "I've got brown and white." "Pa prefers just about everything old-fashioned," Trib rumbles, moving to the refrigerator and looking inside critically. Then he makes an exasperated noise, and stands up. "Pa. The doctor told you to stop drinking that raw milk. Why is it still in here?" Frank shrugs. "Plenty of cowboys drank raw milk, and it didn't hurt them any." He pours out the coffee bringing a cup to Toru. "Here you go." Face going momentarily red at that quiet comment, Toru responds by jabbing Trib in the gut with an elbow. Gently. He doesn't resist following into the kitchen, but is still a little grumbly nonetheless; the mention of 'old-fashioned' coffee just results in a confused sort of silence from the teen, but he decides for now not to pursue the matter. He does, however, manage to /properly/ answer the question, with a nonetheless slightly surly, "Plain's fine. Thanks." The cup gets a bit of a /look/ from Toru before he manages to wipe it off his face again; at this point he actually takes a minute to give the room a slightly more thorough assessment, and he seems to slowly be realizing exactly how /odd/ this house is. He doesn't /say/ anything, though Trib can probably tell he's /thinking/ less-than-polite things. He finds himself a chair to plop down in, hooking one leg over the other, and leans back to take a slow sip from his cup, almost choking on it when it ends up being stronger than he expected, but ultimately managing to get it down. "So, uh, hole in the roof, yeah?" The coffee /is/ strong, and there's a strong flavor of chicory root in it, smoothing out the bitterness just a bit. Frank watches until Toru gets that first swallow down, then moves back to the stove to check the beans. "Plenty of cowboys did a lot of shit," Trib mutters as he moves to claim his own tin cup. "Includin' dyin' before they was fuckin' sixty." He seems less and less happy as he discovers things, including some meat on the counter that's clearly spoiled. He chucks that into a metal pail, growling a bit more. "Yeah, Pa," he says when Toru speaks up. "Let's talk about that fuckin' hole in the goddamned house." "Most cowboys didn't die from natural causes," Frank correct his son, adding a dried pepper from a bag to the beans. "So your logic is flawed. And all they /had/ back then was raw milk, so clearly the doctor doesn't know what he's talking about." He re-covers the beans, and moves to head back down the hall. "I have a fantastic book on the subject of cowboys and the most common ways that they would die. You'd be surprised how many died from gangrene..." his voice fades as he disappears, either unaware of the question or refusing to answer it. There's the sound of shifting marble as Trib grinds his teeth, and the metal handle of his cup actually bends under the tightening of his fist. "God /damn/ it." Toru just silently takes a moment to get used to the taste of the coffee; he's trying very hard to hide the fact that he isn't all that into it, but he's trying to be polite. He's still paying attention to the conversation, but given that it has little to do with /him/, he doesn't find it necessary to interject. At least, not until Frank is out of the room, at which point the cup is pushed aside and he leans towards Trib, lowering his voice a little to hiss, "Dude, what the hell? I feel like we're in a fucking /horror/ movie here." Oddly enough, he actually sounds concerned rather than insulting at all, though the look on his face is closer to confusion. "Is your dad /okay/? He doesn't look like he should even be fucking living alone, dude." Trib tosses the rest of his coffee back, the heat seemingly not bothering him as he swallows with a dark, bleak sort of look. "You've been here ten minutes," he grunts, /throwing/ his cup at the sink. "This is my whole fuckin' /life/." From the recesses of the house, the clack-clack of typing starts up again, gaining speed rapidly until it's a steady clatter of keys against paper. Trib sighs at the sound, and rubs his hand over his face. "Pa ain't been okay since I could remember, but he can function, usually. He ain't been this bad before." He fishes out his phone, and frowns as he moves to the rotary-dial phone on the wall, and reads a number off the pad next to it. "I'm gonna call my uncle Tommy to fuckin' deal with the tree, an' then we are fuckin' history." Pushing himself up out of his chair again, Toru takes his cup over to the sink to pour it out, setting it on the counter while he rests his elbows on the sink itself. Both hands are brought up to tangle fingers in his hair, gripping tightly for a moment before he decides to scrub some water over his face while he's here. "...I mean, it does kinda explain some stuff," he mumbles, just barely audibly. "But jesus /fuck/, man, that guy ain't alright. I don't mean nothin' bad by it, people got problems." He rubs the sleeve of his hoodie over his face, leaving behind some damp hair and assorted moisture around the edges of his face, and musses up his hair some. "Anyway yeah, call your uncle, this place is creeping me out." "I warned you I was fucked up," Trib rumbles, punching the number into his phone. "Now you know why." He moves into the living room to make his call, his low rumble unintelligible as he converses with Tommy. A couple of minutes later, he comes back, some of the thunderclouds removed from his face. "Tommy said he'd come by this afternoon," he informs Toru as he pockets his phone. "So we ain't got to wait around even another fuckin' minute." Which is probably Trib-speak for 'let's get the fuck out of Dodge', since he immediately wheels and heads for the living room, snatching up his jacket and wrestling it over his massive shoulders. If the speed of his dressing is any indication, there's no time for dawdling. "You ain't that fucked up," Toru mumbles, though it's practically a reflex response at this point. While Trib is on the phone, he sort of lingers around the kitchen, pacing in a slow circle around the room. Occasionally poking at a cowboy knicknack or tugging at his jacket while he waits for the call to finish. So there's some surprise when Trib switches to urgent mode, the teen getting that curious puppy look before he actually gets a move on. "Dude, what's with the rush?" He does finally get in gear once he asks that, though, and trots after the larger man. "I mean not that I wanna hang around but why're you all actin' like you're bein' chased by a fuckin'... thing, or somethin'?" "I hate this goddamned house," is all Trib offers, and he pauses on the doorstep. "Watch, an' you'll see why." He turns back, and raises his voice. "PA! We're /leavin'/!" From deep in the house, there's a mumbled response that has little to do with saying good-bye. Trib inhales deeply, and squeezes his eyes shut for a moment before his jaw sets and he turns, shuffling Toru out the door ahead of him and slamming it on his way out. "Without my granddad to keep him in the real fuckin' world, he ain't worth a shit," Trib says as he heads back towards the sidewalk. "But he ain't crazy, so there ain't nothin' no one can do about him except fuckin' /deal/ with him." He doesn't look at Toru as he speaks -- not that he could see him from under those eyebrows which are about as low and furrowed as they get. "Fish!" Toru shouts the nickname a little insistently as he jogs after Trib, grabbing the man by one arm when he catches up. "Hey. If you hate it so much then why the fuck did we just take an hour goddamn train ride to fucking /Jersey/ so we could hang out at your dad's house for ten minutes then book it?" Hand runs over his hair again and he lets out a long sigh, turning to continue down the sidewalk. "I mean y'know I'm okay just hangin' out but dude, I can't fuckin' get a read on this situation." And once more he runs a hand over his hair, this time pausing to rub the back of his neck as he stops walking to let out another sigh. "...Are you okay?" Here, finally, his tone loses most of the frustration it'd taken on, and his expression softens to one of concern. "Could you just talk to me /before/ you get into a funk, for once?" "'Cause he's my fuckin' /dad/!" Trib says, pulling up short and wheeling to face Toru. "My aunt made it sound like the whole fuckin' side of the house was in, an' it ain't, an' I had to make sure he wasn't fuckin' dead or hurt or some shit." He pulls his chin into his jacket further, and glares at the house behind Toru. "I only come out here every couple of months to make sure he's okay, an' pay whatever bills he's fuckin' forgot again." He drives a booted toe at the pavement and turns again. "But he's my dad," he repeats. "If I don't fuckin' do it for him, no one will." He doesn't answer the question of whether he's okay or not; instead, he turns, and begins leading the way back to the bus stop. "Come on. I'll buy you some fuckin' waffles at that diner you like when we get back to the city." Toru grimaces a little at that initial shout, actually recoiling slightly, but doesn't make any move to argue the point. "R.. Right. Sorry," he mumbles, looking off to one side. Giving Trib some space, he walks a few feet behind the larger man, head lowered, hands shoved into his pockets. "Look, you don't... I mean I ain't sayin' I don't like it when you do it but you don't gotta keep buyin' me stuff, y'know?" Yet another sigh, there, and he picks up his pace a bit to walk at Trib's side again. "Let's just go ho-- back to your place. We can grab some sandwiches on the way back or something, I don't really feel like hangin' out in public more'n I gotta, today." Trib sighs, suddenly. It's a bellows-like sound of defeat, and he reaches out to grab at Toru and haul him in to his side, hugging him there firmly. "I don't gotta do nothin' I don't want to," he reminds the teenager with a rumble. "It ain't like I'm showerin' you with fuckin' jewelry or nothin'. We're talkin' fuckin' /waffles/." He manages a lift of one corner of his mouth, and tips his head to regard the younger man. "But your idea sounds better," he admits. He's silent as they round the corner and approach the bench where they'd originally disembarked. Before they get there, the boxer stops, pulling Toru up short, as well. "Thanks for comin' with me today," he mutters, pursing his lips. "I know it's fucked up, but I appreciate you bein' here." He looks around, then, and leans in. "I'm probably only goin' to say this once, so listen good," he growls, still looking about spy-like. "But you know what you said a couple weeks ago? 'Bout how you felt about me?" His mouth works into an almost-smile. "Well, that's how I feel about you." Then one corner of his mouth lifts. "For real." "Yeah I know it's just waffles but every time somethin' like this comes up you're always all quick to promise to buy me somethin' and I dunno, it's kinda weird." Toru grins a little uncomfortably as he leans in against Trib's side, walking just a little awkwardly in that position, but certainly not complaining about it. "Not bad weird, just. You don't gotta bribe me to get me to do stuff with ya. You know I'm gonna grouse about it either way anyways." When things suddenly get all conspiratorial, though, he's tilting his head to look up at Trib with some mixed curiosity, ears perked slightly, one eyebrow lifted. When the admission, such as it is, finally comes out, the teenager's face goes a bright shade of red, and it's all he can do to hold back a goofy smile, instead trying to force it into a more sedate one. "Y.. yeah, well, I mean I kinda figured the way you answered before--" He lifts a hand to his mouth, clearing his throat and looking off to one side. "You ain't actually gonna say it, though, are ya?" Teasing, now. "Well, then it bore fuckin' repeatin'," Trib says. "But just the one time. I don't need people thinkin' I've gone all Cage on you or some shit." He chuffs a laugh at the tease, and shakes his head. "I ain't got to say it," he says, reaching up to /tweak/ Toru's nose cheekily. "Why? You need to hear me say it or somethin'?" Toru drops his head to chomp at one of those fingers, nomming on it for just a moment before releasing it again. He then loops his arms around Trib's waist, leaning in and nuzzling against a shoulder. "Well, I say a lotta stuff about how I feel about you, maybe we're thinkin' of different things." It's obvious he's being intentionally difficult, but he is trying so hard to be smooth about it. "Fuck", but you're needy," Trib rumbles, his eyes crinkling. His own arms loop around the teenager, and then the boxer is leaning down to murmur into Toru's ear; three soft words that are /barely/ audible, even at this proximity. Then he straightens, ears reddening deeply, and he begins to walk Toru towards the bus stop. "You are so buyin' the fuckin' sandwiches for that."