Pacta Sunt Servanda
Feb. 5th, 2012 09:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tikificTitle: Pacta Sunt Servanda
Author: tikistitch
Rating: PG-13
Summary: An early encounter between Charles and Pickles.
Warnings: Nothing much. This isn't Mythklok, if that's gonna throw you.
Notes: I wrote this to enter Pirate's DA raffle, but then had a hard time posting to DA, and then used it as a test case for most posting. I'm getting to feel sorry for this poor little fic.
“Dooood! Mah car won’t start.”
Charles looked up from his textbook, doing a very bad job (as usual) at concealing his irritation. Normally on weeknights the businesses upstairs had cleared out by this late in the evening and he could catch an hour or so before the parking garage closed, alone inside the booth with his law books.
But every once in a while you’d run into some character who had been mooching around too long at that dingy club across the street. (What was it called? The On-Ramp or something?) And said idiot had inevitably forgotten their car keys, or what level they had parked on, or - like this clown - they had left their headlights on.
And this one: he was definitely a character, Bozo the Clown-red hair, thinning but still teased up and jutting crazy in every direction; metal piercings poked and snapped through every likely bit of cartilage; pupils cranked open wide like windows to a certainly damned soul.
“Would you like me to call AAA for you, sir?” Charles asked in his politest possible voice. “Please be aware it might take them a while to get a vehicle out here at this time of night.” This time of morning, really. Oftentimes, that bit of advice was enough for the idiot in question to decide to call some other idiots to come pick him up.
But not this time. “Yeh, sure dood! Ah need a jump!”
Charles reluctantly set down his book and placed the call. “They say twenty minutes to half an hour, sir” he crisply informed the guy.
“Hey, t’anks dood!” The guy pulled his admittedly thin hoodie around him a bit more closely, but made no move to leave.
Aw, shit, thought Charles.
“Dood, it’s kinda cold out here. Cud I sit in da boot’ wit’ yoo? Till dey come?”
Silently praying that this idiot wasn’t one of the chatty ones – but they inevitably were, there was really nothing you could do – Charles scooped a stack of law books off the spare plastic chair and gestured for the guy to enter.
“Hey, t’anks dood!” the guy said, already in the seat quick as a flash, pulling something out of a jacket pocket.
Oh no. “Uh, sir, there is absolutely no smoking inside the booth.”
“Aw, jest one! It’s cold out dere.”
“I could get in trouble. Especially if that’s, uh, not tobacco.”
The guy had already lit up, the end of the spliff (whatever it contained, it was obviously not dried leaves from Virginia) making a dim orange glow in the darkness of the booth. The orange colored the grin the guy now sported, leaning over, eyes in shadow, hair spiked up, proffering a cigarette.
“Smoke wit’ me. You gimme a place t’ sit. Have a hit.”
Charles gulped, wondering why he felt a chill.
“Wut do dey call it? In yer books?”
“Pacta sunt servanda,” said Charles before he realized he was speaking.
“Yeh, like an agreement,” grinned the dude.
Afterwards, Charles wasn’t sure why – he was never sure exactly why – but the spliff was in his hand, and the smoke was going down, warm and burning.
“Yoo know who I am?” asked the guy.
Charles straightened up, though his back was really always straight, re-squared his shoulders, blew a thin stream of smoke, and looked him right in the eye. “You are Pickles, musical sensation and prodigy late of Snakes and Barrels, a popular band which recently crashed and burned amidst rumors of substance abuse and in-fighting,” said Charles.
“Heh, Nawt bad,” said Pickles, grabbing the smoke back.
“You have attempted no less than three bands subsequent to your break up, none of which have managed to find sufficient traction to land a new recording contract.”
The green eyes, shrouded, now narrowed, and the grin had receded somewhat. “So, yoo know me. Yoo a lawyer?” he asked, hefting one of the books.
“Law student.”
“Law, dat's cool. Yoo know, we may have use fer a dood like you.”
“We?”
Pickles didn't answer, but rifled through pages. “So, wut are yoo studyin' toonight?”
Charled frowned. “I am currently reading of the concept, Consensus at idem. You won't have heard-”
“A meetin' o' da minds!” laughed Pickles, merrily handing over the smoke.
Charles frowned, taken aback, and took the smoke. “And what did you mean by having use for a guy like me?” he asked again, exhaling.
“Wull, Ah'm a big star, right? Mebbe Ah need sum protection.”
“Protection? Is somebody suing you?”
“Mebbe, sumthin' like dat.” Pickles was still feigning interest in the textbook, rifling back to front. He reached the frontspiece, his finger tracing the name Charles had inked across the top. “Ahfdenson? Ahfdenson. Hey, yer nawt related to-”
“Charles Ofdenson,” Charles answered. Well, there was no use denying it.
“You are-”
“Charles Foster Ofdenson. I am his … son.” The last word choked out.
“No kiddin'? Yer Ahfdenson joonyer?”
“I am not a junior, I am Charles Foster Ofdenson,” Charles snapped. He glowered at the smoke, handing the spliff back to Pickles. No more. Don't be snotty with the patrons.
Pickles waved it off. “T'ink yoo need it worse dan me, dood,” he smiled.
“Look. I am honestly sorry about your car trouble, and I do not object to you remaining her temporarily-”
“Really?” Pickles cocked his head. “'Cuz I t'ink yoo gaht lahts of ahbjections.”
Charles took a deep breath. “You have been here a total of maybe ten minutes. I am sorry, but you do not know me.”
Pickles smiled and grabbed the smoke back. He suddenly tucked up his legs, sitting cross-legged in the chair like a little buddha. “I don't know, huh? Why don't yoo try me?”
“I'm sorry, try you.... Try what?”
The eyes narrowed. “Okee, Charles Fahster Ahfdenson. Yoo wuz in da military, ‘cuz you gawt dat attitude, and you sit up like yoo gawt a crowbar stuck up yer ass, an’ no one wears deir hair dat short, even if yoo bin tryin’ t’ grow it out,” he explained, waving the smoke at Charles. “An' yoo gawt dat tan line on yer ring finger, so you wuz married, but ah guess she dumped yer ass when yoo wuz overseas?”
“Overseas?” asked Charles, honestly surprised.
“Prolly sumbuddy daddy gaht yoo t’ marry anyway. And dat udder Ahfdenson who's nawt senior prolly disowned yer ass, so dat’s why yer goin’ t’ law school by werkin’ sum shit jawb.”
“OK,” said Charles. “All right….” Stop. Just stop....
“An’,” continued an oblivious Pickles, now suddenly grabbing on to Charles’ hand, “yoo gawt calluses like a dood who plays da guitar a lawt, so I’m t’inkin’ yoo were kickin’ it in a band in cawllege, which is why yoo knew who da feck Ah am, an' why yoo don’t git along so gud wit’ yer old man.”
Charles was utterly still, hand in Pickles' grip, a rabbit being stared down by a rattler.
He flinched at the ringing tone.
Charles picked up the phone, loosing his hand. “The guy's on his way,” he told Pickles.
“Ah guess I'll get t' mah car, den. T'anks, dood,” grinned the redhead, who was already out and gone, surprisingly quick on his feet.
Charles watched the retreating back, and then tried, with limited success, to get settled in a law book once again.
That was probably the reason he saw them, if only from the corner of his eye. Faces were draped in shadow, but he didn't need to see the faces: he had drawings taped to the inside of the booth. Drawings courteously supplied by the Los Angeles Police Department. With very simple instructions: do not engage, call the police.
Charles knew two more things, although they were not printed on his Xeroxed sheet of paper. He knew his company would not allow a mere parking attendant to carry a weapon.
And he knew, in this part of town, the police were slower to respond than AAA.
They were stealthy, but no too stealthy, stalking like two great tigers, after a prey beast that had stupidly wandered away from the herd. They had been watching this one. In silence. He was known to them. Yes, he carried treasures.
The first one moaned and slumped to the kidney punch. He managed to turn, but not quickly enough to fend off the blow to the face. The crunch was sickening as his jaw broke, and he was down.
Glass jaw. Good, thought Charles, turning to the other. He had been seen now. That would make things more difficult. He needed to keep the guy from reaching whatever was in his jacket pocket. Too late! Gun. Shit! Lucky. Charles managed to grab the arm, knock away the gun before the guy could get a shot off. Charles leapt for the scudding gun: a mistake. Not quick enough, and the guy had him in the side with a boot. Charles stifled a moan and rolled away from the second kick. And then he was springing up, way faster than the guy ever would have expected, hands gripping the big guy's shouders, and then his forehead butting. He felt the cartilage pop as he shattered the guy's nose. Now, grab the gun, smack back of the dude's head with the grip.
Charles stood panting, holding his side, still gripping the gun, two bloody unconscious guys at his feet.
He carefully wiped down the gun with his T shirt, and then tossed it on the bodies. Someone would find them. Eventually. He would make the 911 call when his shift ended in a few minutes.
He crept quietly down half a level, peered around the concrete wall. Pickles, leaning up against a car that had seen better days. Well, Pickles had seen better days.
Haven't we all?
Charles walked back up to the booth, rubbing his side. He had seen worse. Much worse. He smiled thinly as the AAA truck came by. He nodded – he knew the driver – and pointed back down the garage.
And then back to the booth, stuffing law books in a backpack, and finally a trudge back to the surface. It was still dark, of course. They had some time to go before the dawn, before the light broke.
He sat down on the bus bench with a moan. He probably needed an ice pack for his side. He looked at the schedule posted on the side of the shelter and sighed. He unzipped the pack, grabbed a textbook, and began to read.
Moments later, he looked up in surprise at the car idling next to the stop.
“Yoo werk in a parking lawt and yoo don’t got a car?”
“No, I do not have a car,” sighed Charles.
“Wul, which way you headed?” asked Pickles, cheerily pushing open the passenger side door.
“Ah, just home I guess,” said Charles, who found himself and his books sitting in the passenger seat, and, despite the dull ache in his side, feeling nothing like actually going home.
“Really, dood? Cuz, dere's dese doods yoo might like.”
“Ah, dudes?”
“Dooood, dis fecked up singer dood, and dis crazy guitarist who don't speak a werd o' English. Dey're playin' at a club in Nort' Hollyweird. I cud git us in!”
Charles blinked at Pickles, red hair sticking up in points and piercings everywhere. “You want to go to a club?”
“C'mon dood. Yer wit' me now,” grinned Pickles. And then the car was in gear.
Author: tikistitch
Rating: PG-13
Summary: An early encounter between Charles and Pickles.
Warnings: Nothing much. This isn't Mythklok, if that's gonna throw you.
Notes: I wrote this to enter Pirate's DA raffle, but then had a hard time posting to DA, and then used it as a test case for most posting. I'm getting to feel sorry for this poor little fic.
“Dooood! Mah car won’t start.”
Charles looked up from his textbook, doing a very bad job (as usual) at concealing his irritation. Normally on weeknights the businesses upstairs had cleared out by this late in the evening and he could catch an hour or so before the parking garage closed, alone inside the booth with his law books.
But every once in a while you’d run into some character who had been mooching around too long at that dingy club across the street. (What was it called? The On-Ramp or something?) And said idiot had inevitably forgotten their car keys, or what level they had parked on, or - like this clown - they had left their headlights on.
And this one: he was definitely a character, Bozo the Clown-red hair, thinning but still teased up and jutting crazy in every direction; metal piercings poked and snapped through every likely bit of cartilage; pupils cranked open wide like windows to a certainly damned soul.
“Would you like me to call AAA for you, sir?” Charles asked in his politest possible voice. “Please be aware it might take them a while to get a vehicle out here at this time of night.” This time of morning, really. Oftentimes, that bit of advice was enough for the idiot in question to decide to call some other idiots to come pick him up.
But not this time. “Yeh, sure dood! Ah need a jump!”
Charles reluctantly set down his book and placed the call. “They say twenty minutes to half an hour, sir” he crisply informed the guy.
“Hey, t’anks dood!” The guy pulled his admittedly thin hoodie around him a bit more closely, but made no move to leave.
Aw, shit, thought Charles.
“Dood, it’s kinda cold out here. Cud I sit in da boot’ wit’ yoo? Till dey come?”
Silently praying that this idiot wasn’t one of the chatty ones – but they inevitably were, there was really nothing you could do – Charles scooped a stack of law books off the spare plastic chair and gestured for the guy to enter.
“Hey, t’anks dood!” the guy said, already in the seat quick as a flash, pulling something out of a jacket pocket.
Oh no. “Uh, sir, there is absolutely no smoking inside the booth.”
“Aw, jest one! It’s cold out dere.”
“I could get in trouble. Especially if that’s, uh, not tobacco.”
The guy had already lit up, the end of the spliff (whatever it contained, it was obviously not dried leaves from Virginia) making a dim orange glow in the darkness of the booth. The orange colored the grin the guy now sported, leaning over, eyes in shadow, hair spiked up, proffering a cigarette.
“Smoke wit’ me. You gimme a place t’ sit. Have a hit.”
Charles gulped, wondering why he felt a chill.
“Wut do dey call it? In yer books?”
“Pacta sunt servanda,” said Charles before he realized he was speaking.
“Yeh, like an agreement,” grinned the dude.
Afterwards, Charles wasn’t sure why – he was never sure exactly why – but the spliff was in his hand, and the smoke was going down, warm and burning.
“Yoo know who I am?” asked the guy.
Charles straightened up, though his back was really always straight, re-squared his shoulders, blew a thin stream of smoke, and looked him right in the eye. “You are Pickles, musical sensation and prodigy late of Snakes and Barrels, a popular band which recently crashed and burned amidst rumors of substance abuse and in-fighting,” said Charles.
“Heh, Nawt bad,” said Pickles, grabbing the smoke back.
“You have attempted no less than three bands subsequent to your break up, none of which have managed to find sufficient traction to land a new recording contract.”
The green eyes, shrouded, now narrowed, and the grin had receded somewhat. “So, yoo know me. Yoo a lawyer?” he asked, hefting one of the books.
“Law student.”
“Law, dat's cool. Yoo know, we may have use fer a dood like you.”
“We?”
Pickles didn't answer, but rifled through pages. “So, wut are yoo studyin' toonight?”
Charled frowned. “I am currently reading of the concept, Consensus at idem. You won't have heard-”
“A meetin' o' da minds!” laughed Pickles, merrily handing over the smoke.
Charles frowned, taken aback, and took the smoke. “And what did you mean by having use for a guy like me?” he asked again, exhaling.
“Wull, Ah'm a big star, right? Mebbe Ah need sum protection.”
“Protection? Is somebody suing you?”
“Mebbe, sumthin' like dat.” Pickles was still feigning interest in the textbook, rifling back to front. He reached the frontspiece, his finger tracing the name Charles had inked across the top. “Ahfdenson? Ahfdenson. Hey, yer nawt related to-”
“Charles Ofdenson,” Charles answered. Well, there was no use denying it.
“You are-”
“Charles Foster Ofdenson. I am his … son.” The last word choked out.
“No kiddin'? Yer Ahfdenson joonyer?”
“I am not a junior, I am Charles Foster Ofdenson,” Charles snapped. He glowered at the smoke, handing the spliff back to Pickles. No more. Don't be snotty with the patrons.
Pickles waved it off. “T'ink yoo need it worse dan me, dood,” he smiled.
“Look. I am honestly sorry about your car trouble, and I do not object to you remaining her temporarily-”
“Really?” Pickles cocked his head. “'Cuz I t'ink yoo gaht lahts of ahbjections.”
Charles took a deep breath. “You have been here a total of maybe ten minutes. I am sorry, but you do not know me.”
Pickles smiled and grabbed the smoke back. He suddenly tucked up his legs, sitting cross-legged in the chair like a little buddha. “I don't know, huh? Why don't yoo try me?”
“I'm sorry, try you.... Try what?”
The eyes narrowed. “Okee, Charles Fahster Ahfdenson. Yoo wuz in da military, ‘cuz you gawt dat attitude, and you sit up like yoo gawt a crowbar stuck up yer ass, an’ no one wears deir hair dat short, even if yoo bin tryin’ t’ grow it out,” he explained, waving the smoke at Charles. “An' yoo gawt dat tan line on yer ring finger, so you wuz married, but ah guess she dumped yer ass when yoo wuz overseas?”
“Overseas?” asked Charles, honestly surprised.
“Prolly sumbuddy daddy gaht yoo t’ marry anyway. And dat udder Ahfdenson who's nawt senior prolly disowned yer ass, so dat’s why yer goin’ t’ law school by werkin’ sum shit jawb.”
“OK,” said Charles. “All right….” Stop. Just stop....
“An’,” continued an oblivious Pickles, now suddenly grabbing on to Charles’ hand, “yoo gawt calluses like a dood who plays da guitar a lawt, so I’m t’inkin’ yoo were kickin’ it in a band in cawllege, which is why yoo knew who da feck Ah am, an' why yoo don’t git along so gud wit’ yer old man.”
Charles was utterly still, hand in Pickles' grip, a rabbit being stared down by a rattler.
He flinched at the ringing tone.
Charles picked up the phone, loosing his hand. “The guy's on his way,” he told Pickles.
“Ah guess I'll get t' mah car, den. T'anks, dood,” grinned the redhead, who was already out and gone, surprisingly quick on his feet.
Charles watched the retreating back, and then tried, with limited success, to get settled in a law book once again.
That was probably the reason he saw them, if only from the corner of his eye. Faces were draped in shadow, but he didn't need to see the faces: he had drawings taped to the inside of the booth. Drawings courteously supplied by the Los Angeles Police Department. With very simple instructions: do not engage, call the police.
Charles knew two more things, although they were not printed on his Xeroxed sheet of paper. He knew his company would not allow a mere parking attendant to carry a weapon.
And he knew, in this part of town, the police were slower to respond than AAA.
They were stealthy, but no too stealthy, stalking like two great tigers, after a prey beast that had stupidly wandered away from the herd. They had been watching this one. In silence. He was known to them. Yes, he carried treasures.
The first one moaned and slumped to the kidney punch. He managed to turn, but not quickly enough to fend off the blow to the face. The crunch was sickening as his jaw broke, and he was down.
Glass jaw. Good, thought Charles, turning to the other. He had been seen now. That would make things more difficult. He needed to keep the guy from reaching whatever was in his jacket pocket. Too late! Gun. Shit! Lucky. Charles managed to grab the arm, knock away the gun before the guy could get a shot off. Charles leapt for the scudding gun: a mistake. Not quick enough, and the guy had him in the side with a boot. Charles stifled a moan and rolled away from the second kick. And then he was springing up, way faster than the guy ever would have expected, hands gripping the big guy's shouders, and then his forehead butting. He felt the cartilage pop as he shattered the guy's nose. Now, grab the gun, smack back of the dude's head with the grip.
Charles stood panting, holding his side, still gripping the gun, two bloody unconscious guys at his feet.
He carefully wiped down the gun with his T shirt, and then tossed it on the bodies. Someone would find them. Eventually. He would make the 911 call when his shift ended in a few minutes.
He crept quietly down half a level, peered around the concrete wall. Pickles, leaning up against a car that had seen better days. Well, Pickles had seen better days.
Haven't we all?
Charles walked back up to the booth, rubbing his side. He had seen worse. Much worse. He smiled thinly as the AAA truck came by. He nodded – he knew the driver – and pointed back down the garage.
And then back to the booth, stuffing law books in a backpack, and finally a trudge back to the surface. It was still dark, of course. They had some time to go before the dawn, before the light broke.
He sat down on the bus bench with a moan. He probably needed an ice pack for his side. He looked at the schedule posted on the side of the shelter and sighed. He unzipped the pack, grabbed a textbook, and began to read.
Moments later, he looked up in surprise at the car idling next to the stop.
“Yoo werk in a parking lawt and yoo don’t got a car?”
“No, I do not have a car,” sighed Charles.
“Wul, which way you headed?” asked Pickles, cheerily pushing open the passenger side door.
“Ah, just home I guess,” said Charles, who found himself and his books sitting in the passenger seat, and, despite the dull ache in his side, feeling nothing like actually going home.
“Really, dood? Cuz, dere's dese doods yoo might like.”
“Ah, dudes?”
“Dooood, dis fecked up singer dood, and dis crazy guitarist who don't speak a werd o' English. Dey're playin' at a club in Nort' Hollyweird. I cud git us in!”
Charles blinked at Pickles, red hair sticking up in points and piercings everywhere. “You want to go to a club?”
“C'mon dood. Yer wit' me now,” grinned Pickles. And then the car was in gear.
