A Bump in the Road. Chapter Two.
A bump in the Road Chapter Two By Roofles
To be honest? I wasn't sure when Marco moved in. It felt like we had always lived together, in our own messed up way. Free from our parents grasp that was this time around. Messed up still, sure, but managing our own. Scraping by with the bills, always running out of the essential things one doesn't think about until its gone. Like food. And toilet paper.
Heh, first week he moved in we got nearly into a fist fight because someone had used the last of the toilet paper. Thinking about it? I think that someone was me, ha. Ended up with a bruise eye for the rest of the week, wasn't too hard to explain to the guys at work thankfully. Comes with the job. Bastard didn't even have a mark on him the next day.
So it was strange now to be sitting here at a pub Marco had taken an odd fancy too. Hanging out in public like old High School friends or something. So long as we sat at the farthest table away from the public restrooms that was. Sure they smelled bad and I wouldn't be caught using one but it wasn't bad enough to throw a hissy fit over it. Dude could be such a baby.
The pub was scrunched between two business buildings and completely out of place within the bustling downtown. Most people walked by it without even noticing the red brick wall building. It was far older than any of the other buildings around even older than the town hall just a block away. The inside was far larger than one would've assumed the small building to be able to house. It was furnished in actual oaken tables and chairs, a single pillar sat in the middle of the room hand carved and decorated like a totem pole.
Tables were scattering about haphazardly and there were several booths on raised floor boards. The side bar was pushed into the corner next to the back room door. Hanging lanterns, actually lanterns, hung from the sealing and torch styled lights were attatched to the wall in black metal frames. Reminded me a bit of the Los Vegas medieval theater.
Chicken wings soon arrived with two specials. The specials were always the same. A type of burger depending on the day and a shit ton of fries. I could never finish mine but Marco was always more than happy to help. Dude was a bottomless pit. One reason we were always out of food it seemed.
"I'll apologize to Nancy." Marco finally said after about five minutes or so of the silent treatment. The time we had spoken before was to place our order.
"Good." Was all that needed to be said and the subject was dropped. Nancy was an old friend that had arranged the job for him. I was going to owe her big for this once, that was for sure. A no questions asked kind of big. I hated owing people favors. "I recorded the game for you." I said a few seconds later as if to say without saying that I accepted his apology.
"Good." Was the grunt of a reply I got. Ah, it was like old times again.
Marco was already wolfing down his food the second the hot plate hit the table. I was embarrassed for the man with no shame and at first had half a mind to apologize to those around us. However everyone here seem to mind their own business. It was heavenly. Roughly half the others around us ate in similar fashion anyways and no one said a damn word about it. I wondered if I was actually in the same city as before. People always felt the need to put their damn nose into others business, kind of ironic seeing as what I do for a livin'.
"You didn't get shot did you?" Marco asked around a bite of hamburger. These hamburgers were nearly the size of your head and every bite Marco took was a good fist size out of it.
"Shot? No. Why do you ask?" I raised an eyebrow but kept to my own meal, unable to stand watching him eat. Always a pet peeve of mind. Seeing other people eat that was. Nasty business.
"You smell of blood." Ah yes, one of those odd little things that my dear step-brother blatantly says out loud where everyone can hear us. He was never this odd, that I remember anyways, back in the day. Whatever the fuck happened to him in these last couple of years really seemed to have taken an...odd toll on him.
"Oh. Right." I produced the handkerchief I had used to clean the blood from my hand. "I should probably bring this to forensics for evidence." I laughed a bit tossing it onto the table with a smile. Marco didn't even flinch as he looked at it. Just stared at it really before continue eating. And here I remember him having such a weak stomach.
Time really does change people I guess.
"Whose?" He asked offhandedly as he continued to enjoy the meal I paid for.
"From a case." I just shrugged picking at my fries.
"Do tell." Marco just as offhandedly shrugged, asking about it. His eyes had looked up from his meal however showing his interest in the matter.
It wasn't the first time he had asked about the cases I worked. Or stumble onto the photos I had left out (on accident I swear). Or rooted through my stuff to dig up whatever he could. Honestly? I would've been the same way in the end of things. A morbid curiosity seemed to run in the family. One reason why I went into this trade after all. A need to know how. I could care less about the why though.
"The wolf-man." I laughed, joking as I thought of the odd prints I had seen. It was at this that he looked at me and nearly everyone in the pub seemed to have fallen silent. "What?" I felt as if I had just farted extremely loud inside an elevator or said some kind of racial slur. "It's a joke. A joke." I just rolled my eyes dismissing it even if I felt like a fool anyways.
"What cha' mean?" Marco just asked, actually setting his hamburger down.
Be it some need to want to actually have a conversation for a change or the fact I wanted to feel as if there was some brotherly love, I told him a bit about it. Not like I had been sworn to secrecy exactly. "Just found some odd prints is all." I shrugged. "Dog must've gotten into the case...and on the roof. A dog that could turn into a man!" I chuckled and just shook my head.
Marco reached over and took the handkerchief and though I didn't believe it I could've sworn he actually smelled it. "Sorry," I said rather flatly. "I wiped my ass with that." A frown cross my face as he looked at me, then I chuckled under that cold gaze of his. I had never won a staring contest against him.
Marco tossed it back onto the table and began working on his meal once more seemingly already have forgotten about the case.
"Wolves aren't like that." He said after some time, catching me off guard. Him and his wolf fetish, I swear...
"Yeah, yeah." I just rolled my eyes keeping to myself this time around. Last time I had pointed a few facts out to him that made him pout for the rest of the weekend. Like how wolves have to hunt in packs, how each hunt only has a small chance of actually succeeding and that as a predator they aren't much of a threat by themselves. Let alone for how they were nearly wiped out by farmers in, like, every country they were in.
And with it our conversation died down to nothing.
We ate in silence as usual and with a curious eye I ended up looking around at the denizens of this establishment. Be it out of habit or something else, who knows? And who cared? It at least gave me something to do.
It was kind of funny really. It reminded me of us, those around that is. They were just...as odd as we were. Like the young lady in the corner. She was dolled up like she were in a masquerade ball. Large maroon dress, with actual silver jewels that hung from her subtle neck down between her hefty bosom. Her nails were painted a dark red like crimson blood. Each nail reflected the light hanging above. Each ear was adorned with several expensive looking diamond earrings that hung like small chandeliers.
The person with her on the other hand looked like...well a college student. She had the nerdy glasses, the loose gray sweat shirt and her red hair was quickly done up in a half hazardest bun. Several strands of that unwashed hair stuck out at odd angles from her bun and she looked as if she hadn't had a proper nights sleep in ages. The one thing that did stand out as odd was the turtle neck sweater she wore and the fact she kept rubbing the side of her neck as if it were bruised.
Even the owner of the pub was an odd man. Tall like a lumber jack, built like a tank and had a large golden bull ring sticking out of his nose. He was a sight. Looked like a hired hitman or bodyguard for a mob boss. Someone you would see outside a popular night club not inside.
And then there was us. A guy with an endless appetite and a nose of a blood hound, scruffy as all hell with tangled mess of hair and side burns that poofed out like fuckin' wolverine here, and then me. Your Joe schmoe to most. I preferred that though. Easier for me to do my job if I can just blended into the back ground.
"Will you be on the case long?" Marco asked drawing me away from my site seeing. It wasn't like him to take that much of an interest in a case. Bordedom I chalked it up to at that time.
"Probably. Has the whole city on lock down, curfew's going up and well everyone from the mayor to the police chief are getting involved. I heard they even called in a few suits." At Marco's quizzical look I explained. "FBI, an trust me." I leaned across the table feeling my own worry sink in knowing soon or later I'd have to deal with those bastards. "You don't want to mess with them."
"I'll keep that in mind." Marco noted a little too seriously.
He always did seem to grow more tense as the full moon rolled around...