radiohead - everything in its right place.mp3

[crack]

WHO: Tyrell and ALL YALL
WHERE: De Chima for the most part
WHEN: this blessed month in its entirety
WHAT: catch-all, continuation of TDM threads, one general open if anyone would like to get off the ground CR with him. also, feel free to shoot me a PM or hit me up on plurk (aaah) if you want something!
WARNINGS: none atm, will update if necessary!

Comments

OPEN.

[crack]

( it says a lot about tyrell that he can adapt so quickly to a place as fundamentally different as this. mostly it's just that he's used to changing himself to fit his surroundings, which also says quite a lot. as it stands, he's really trying not to spend so much time in the housing he's been assigned - de chima #003 - partly because he wants to explore the city, and partly because the idea of living with roommates is equal parts an annoyance and an utter humiliation. he's only ever really in the house to eat and sleep.

so: find tyrell on his morning run (or his evening run) in spite of the wintry chill, or out and about getting his bearings in the city, haunting cafés for their wifi, making polite customer complaints if he receives bad service, and wishing he had a vast enough sum of money to go shopping for some nice new clothes because holy shit the money he's been given is not enough for his very particular needs. )

@nastygram

[crack]

» continued.

( tyrell is a mess of contradictions: he's renowned for being cool, detached, separate, but never in his life has he been able to keep a completely cool head. mostly, the outpouring of spitting anger comes later, not because he's letting it simmer but because he's containing it until he can let it all out somewhere nobody will see. but searing hot coffee in his lap seems like a completely righteous thing to be angry about - at least that's what he'll tell himself later, probably.

he pushes back from the table but the worst of the damage is already done, a deep and ugly stain seeping into the fabric of his gunpowder-grey F/W 2014 armani trousers. standing up, he snatches up a bundle of napkins but does nothing with them besides strangle them in his fist. in a voice loud enough that just about the entire café goes silent to stare, ) Are you fucking blind? What the fuck is your problem?

( he's not feeling particularly original at the present moment, so the continuing tirade of questions really is just asking the same thing over and over again in a variety of different ways. the barista looks horrified. tyrell can feel his entire body going taut with anger, and his fingernails dig into his palms, leaving little half-moon impressions in his skin. the barista opens his mouth to say something but before he can even get out a word, all of the lightbulbs in the café turn on at exactly the same time, then fizz and pop, sparking. there's the telltale shutter and snap of a fuse blowing; all of the coffee machines in the kitchen immediately stop working. someone lets out a very polite little scream.

that was his fault, he knows it was, but he's not acknowledging it. he looks around wide-eyed, and then down at his trousers, which are beyond ruined. still, he starts to pat down at the wet fabric with the screwed-up ball of napkins. )

This is unacceptable, ( he tells the barista, who looked briefly relieved that tyrell was distracted and has gone back to deeply unsettled now that he's being spoken to again. ) I want my drink comped.

8]]]]

[nastygram]

[Tantrum shows up right on time. Not that Darlene wouldn't rip someone a new asshole if they dumped coffee on her lap. That is like basic human instinct. But it takes a rich dick to start in on an actual tantrum, like the world owes everything and people don't just fuck up, or in this case, get paid to fuck up. The predictability is satisfying, in its way. Blatant cause-and-effect type stuff. Only--

Darlene freezes when the electricity begins to freak out. Her hands, clutching the straps of her backpack, tighten. The audible snap of the fuse sends a current of distress through all the plugged-in electronics, which Darlene feels like a passing headache. She clenches her jaw as she stares up at the dead lights--just like everyone else in the coffee shop is doing, those who aren't staring at Tyrell, which, speaking of, when Darlene drops her gaze, she takes a sec to look at him straight on.

He doesn't look good. He doesn't look happy. He also looks a little less raging pissed but no less pasty-white-face, maybe even a more pasty. When she makes her leap in logic--freaky electricity, tantrum, this is some poltergeisty shit--Darlene's eyes narrow.

The barista, unsettled, still manages to nod fervently. Yes, comped. Maybe a gift card. He turns to scurry back to the register to make this happen, putting him right in Darlene's way (or vice versa). She's polite enough to sidestep to make space for him, and the look he gives her in passing is none too kind, despite the fact that she paid him off. Talk about ungrateful. With a little eyeroll, she shifts her attention back to Tyrell.

And inadvertently makes eye contact with Tyrell. Which is a small thing, but a small thing that was not part of the plan.

Darlene is quick. She maintains eye contact. Takes another sip of her coffee, turns oh-so-casually on her heel to start for the front door, the heels of her boots clopping against the tile floor.]

[raw]

A lot of secrets have spilled lately. Some accidentally, some divulged by Elliot himself in some kind of misguided attempt at normalcy. But he still hasn't told anybody about how he's a murderer now. How he killed Tyrell Wellick.

It's not like Shakespeare. He doesn't hallucinate blood on his hands or a dagger that he sees before him. Maybe Mr Robot did him a favour in making him forget, saved him from the visceral guilt, the moral shock of taking a life. Maybe he figured Elliot didn't, doesn't, need yet another layer of madness on top of everything else.

Or maybe he was full of shit!!! Is the conclusion he comes to when he sees Tyrell Wellick, looking like a fucking Dresden doll, through the window of the house next door.

(It's not stalking. He's just not ready to actually interact with a guy from his favourite movie yet. That he exists is enough right now, and Elliot checks in more often than not even though he's never worked up the nerve to approach.)

Back pressed hard against the wall he comes to the conclusion — on his own, okay — that maybe Mr Robot wasn't lying. Sarissa had talked about dying and coming back, someone else had mentioned being dead back home. A lot of unlikely bullshit goes down here. But what does that mean, if Tyrell remembers Elliot shooting him? Or what if he doesn't, is Elliot just expected to live with that information? Or what if Mr Robot lied after all? What if he's already in touch with Tyrell and he tells Tyrell to lie too? Elliot has no idea who to trust anymore.

Eventually he just. Comes over. Rings the doorbell. There's a defrosted moussaka in his hands like a peace offering, a neighborly gesture. That he didn't make it is beside the point. That his hands are shaking is beside the point.

[crack]

The last time Tyrell shared a living space with someone that wasn't Joanna, he was at college, and to nobody at all's surprise he hated it. For the first six months he resolutely ignored his roommates, specifically only went into the kitchen when he knew nobody else was there, and turned down every offer of food and conversation.

This is no different. He's grown up at least a little since college, but not all that much when it comes to this. This morning he got up at six thirty, took a run in a spitting haze of rain, then got back and ran a bath, and spent the mid-morning up to his chin in steaming hot soapy water. At exactly midday he shuffled out of the bathroom, wrapped up in a towel, slipped into his bedroom and shut the door behind him, emerging an hour later to make a sandwich. He's only just finished eating it, leaning against the kitchen counter, when the doorbell rings.

For a solid minute, he isn't sure whether he should answer. He doesn't know anybody here, so it definitely can't be for him, but he was raised with at least a modicum of respect for manners and even if he's barely said two words to the people he shares this place with, it wouldn't shine well on him if he refused to even answer the door. Maybe it's a package delivery. Maybe somebody got locked out.

He has the crust of his sandwich in his hand when he trails over to the door, opens it, looks down and makes eye contact with Elliot Alderson. Elliot. Oh.

Tyrell stares, uncomprehendingly, brow scrunched into a furrow, lips twisted down. He opens his mouth, pulls in a little breath and continues to stare. On the exhale, more breathily than he'd anticipated, sounding absurdly reverent: "Elliot."

[raw]

"Yeah," says Elliot, not particularly inflected, not soft or sarcastic or enthused. Just yeah. He lifts the foil covered dish slightly higher, into eyesight, to try and deflect Tyrell's gaze.

At the very least, that probably isn't the reaction Tyrell would have to someone who killed him.

"I brought you this," he says, inscrutable. Not attempting to explain why or what it is or how he knew Tyrell was living here.

[crack]

"Oh." Why is he looking at him like that? Tyrell has never been especially good at reading people, at least not the subtleties of it, so he can't discern exactly what expression is on Elliot's face or how he's supposed to respond to it. Maybe it's just Elliot. Maybe he's missing something.

He scrubs at the back of his neck and kneads into the nub at the top of his spine for a few seconds. His eyes flick down to the dish and compulsively he shifts to cover the hand holding his bread crust so he can fold it smaller and squash it in his fist. This conversation hasn't even hit ten words and already he feels unmoored, restless, wanting to be told exactly what to think, what to say, how to feel. (His eyes are so big, god they're so big and he feels like he's being looked at all the way down to his guts, and Elliot looks so hard on all his edges but there's softness in the angles even then, and he feels a little sick and a little hungry and a little desperate and a little like he wants to crush something, and he wants so much and doesn't know what to do with all of it. The ambient temperature of the apartment notches up two degrees in an instant.)

He decides, eventually, on, "Thank you," and then reaches out to take the dish. He doesn't even know what it is. A casserole, maybe. It surprises him so thoroughly to think about Elliot as the type of person who would bring a casserole to a housewarming that, bizarrely, he almost laughs. After a beat he swallows down the urge and steps aside from the doorway to give Elliot a little space. "Come in. It's freezing out."

[raw]

It's surreal. Tyrell inviting him inside like a guest, Elliot with food, both of them polite and ordinary, masks firmly in place. But surely it's familiar for Tyrell; for Elliot, it stifles, but he's — horrifically afraid. To the point that he would rather stand in the cold than go in somewhere private. Yet what he says is, "Sure," as he treacherous feet carry him through the doorway.

Once inside enough he stops, like he needs further instruction to do anything beyond literally coming inside. Then he swallows hard and thinks no, no, he's unsteadied Tyrell coming over here, why shift that dynamic now? and pushes onwards to the common living room, exactly the same as his own next door — well, structurally, furnishing-wise, since his own is a mess.

"What's the last thing you remember?" he asks, as soon as Tyrell joins him, trading out faux-normalcy for something more interregatory.