someone's mouth said, "paint them all red"

[caballero]

Who: Bruce Wayne "Tom" and you?
What: Some new stuff and some old stuff; there are a couple of thread starters but otherwise it's totally open.
Where: Various places - default starter is Bonetown, but if you'd like to bump into Kermit elsewhere, ping me to wrangle an idea, the world is our oyster.
Notes: I want your CR and I want your revenge. Tho I apologize ahead of time - Bruce is not really proactive socially so if you want to hurl your character at him you might have to be the one to poke him with a stick. Also his permissions post has been updated, so if you haven't interacted with him before it's worth a read. I'M SORRY THIS CHARACTER IS SO DIFFICULT.
Warnings: TBA.

Bonetown, despite all political hardships and polarized status compared to other cantons - hell, much of the city - has managed to carry on relatively securely. Bruce appreciates the population of paranoid hermits, nonpowered nonEarthlings, and scientists and alchemists working to fail-safe their material, locked in a bubble free of interference. The salves and bandages he can pick up near his flat, made from all natural products originating from planets he's heard of and ones he hasn't, fill his medicine cabinet to overflowing; sometimes these old mothers look at him over the rims of their glasses and inspect the bruises on his hands with something like skeptical judgment, and he doesn't begrudge them that. He doesn't look like a hippie and never will, feelings deep in his heart aside.

Today's a mystery tea day. He can't pronounce what he got (yet), but the donut in the accompanying bag is laughably mundane (rainbow jimmies). The riverbank that overlooks the three-way split is good for the view, and also scoping out chaos at the arena across the way. He'll sit there for a while, then melt back into the crowds.

Comments

[alan_shore]

"Tom," Alan repeats, a hint of a drawl to the word. He gazes levelly at the other man--if he's skeptical of the introduction, this immediate promotion to a first-name basis, it's not readily apparent.

He does, however, hesitate a moment--one solid moment, counted off by some internal metronome--before taking the proffered hand. "Alan Shore." He has a lawyer's soft hands but a firm shake. "My office is right this way, Tom, but for future reference--and as you yourself may have observed--this is not a deli counter. You don't walk in, tear off a number, and ask for a third-pound of corned beef when the time comes. This a law firm, and those wishing to avail themselves of my expertise typically make appointments." All this is said in conversational tones (indeed, there are residents of Baedal--Alan employs one of them--who are largely ignorant of the workings of a law firm), with perhaps a note of reproach.

[caballero]

Either Tom here is too off in space to catch the mild chastisement, or he doesn't care; Alan's inviting him into his office anyway - is he just curious about what Tom could possibly be here for, or desperate for work? - so maybe he's got some sandwiches hidden behind his desk after all. (Probably not.)

"I appreciate you seeing me anyway," mannerly, despite narrative flippancy. His hands are calloused, but at least for today, not obviously bruised. "There's not many lawyers on your cohort." Your, not our, even though he doesn't expect that impression to last - even without the fact that he's going to run nearly head first into Kalinda just outside the door here, he doesn't keep it much of a secret. The faint implication that he's seeking the reputation of trouble-makers, versus deception, is what he's after here.

[alan_shore]

"Really." This can't possibly be Alan's first brush with that fact, but all the same he does an almost-credible job of receiving it as a minor revelation. "By most people's reckoning, one lawyer is a surfeit."

His office awaits--neither small nor vast, with a minimum of clutter. A space eschewing the convolutions necessitated by the work that goes on within. (Which isn't, however, to say that it's bare--there are of course books, and at one corner of the desk a potted plant with clever, graceful tendrils.)

"Help yourself to a seat, I suppose," Alan says, not so much inviting as preemptively sanctioning the occupation of one of his chairs.

[caballero]

"Most people are pretty set in their ways," he observes, neither an agreement or a critique. One chair is temporarily ceded to Gotham, and Tom looks for all the world like he'd be at home playing a perfectly respectable (and thus completely untrustworthy) anonymous board member of some faceless company in a far off, significantly less fanciful world.

Sort of.

"I'm sure you're aware of the general lack of what amounts to social services in the city." What an opening. If that wouldn't terrify most lawyers, god knows what would.

[alan_shore]

Alan makes, in rapid succession, several small, fine-tuned concessions to his curiosity: cants his head just so, blinks once, smiles a self-contained smile, nothing to spare.

“Why don't you tell me about it anyway,” he says, a treacherous undertow of invitation in the suggestion. Fastidiously, he unbuttons his suit jacket and settles in behind the desk. “Go wild. String more than two sentences together.” That smile of his hasn't faltered; if he is goading, it's in a fundamentally agreeable fashion.

[caballero]

The man who isn't really Tom cracks a smile at that - half of one, anyway - and it's different from the other expressions he's made so far; it's telling, just a little, about the strange other person behind whomever he's pretending to be here in Alan's office. Someone a little less polite, maybe.

"There's a minimal amount of social services," he reiterates, as an introduction, "and there are no services, social or otherwise, for people who have been victimized by the state itself." The pause there might be for effect, or maybe just because he's still masking what would otherwise be a faint and depressing New Jersey accent. "It's something I'd like to adjust."