capeandcowllogs | Oh my shit HOW many months have I been promising an open log with him?

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Oh my shit HOW many months have I been promising an open log with him?

WHO: Bruno and OPEN
WHERE: Inside and around the MAC and therabouts.
WHEN: Most any time between this post last Wednesday and roundabouts earlier this afternoon ~~before Gamzeetiems~~.
WARNINGS: VROOM VROOM
SUMMARY: Bruno is selling his motorbikes! From... his MAC apartment filled with motorbikes. Because this is totally not weird or a potential violation of building codes at all. Confirmed buyers, potential buyers, and confused/amused/horrified gawkers are all welcome!
FORMAT: Tagger's choice!

Bruno was getting to be practically a constantly-grinning ball of giddy anticipation knowing that Kaiba was going to announce the official release of the new fully-fledged D-Wheels any day now. And just because Kaiba had made him swear on pain of death and litigation never to open his mouth about them outside of work ever again, didn't mean that he couldn't privately celebrate in his own way. Which, at the moment, involved selling his motorcycles.

He'd been a little unsure about it at first; every one of them had been either partially or completely hand-built by him, and he honestly felt pretty fond of each one in its own way. But seeing Cass on the one he'd made for her had just made him excited to think of them all finally being ridden out on the open road for real, instead of the "once every month or two" that just Bruno by himself could manage to give to them. He felt almost like he'd been keeping most of them in a cage, and machines like these deserved to be doing what they were made to do.

And if people gave him weird looks for walking each motorcycle out of his apartment by the handlebars and then through the halls, down the elevator and out through the front lobby, well... he had to get them out of the metaphorical cage somehow.

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Alastair didn't know how fast Bruno was going to finish Bakura's bike, so his dropping by was mostly just to poke at bikes. It was the weekend, he had nothing to do besides bum around, and he'd be out of town on business next week so it was perfect.

He hadn't been in the MAC since the day he raged at the comm, threw away his dog tags, and bailed to go room with Kiryu at the abandoned motel. Wow, so long ago. Alastair stopped outside the front door just to gawk and reminisce for a minute, wearing a camoflage shirt a size too small and carrying his motorcycle helmet under his arm.

And while Alastair was busy gawking, someone else with a motorcycle helmet under his arm turned out to be walking towards him down the sidewalk and staring at him.

"Alastair?"

Alastair turned and blinked. "Hey, Bruno!" he called out. "Just the guy I wanted to see."

"Oh?" he said, breaking into a grin and trotting over to join him at the front door. "What'd you need to see me about?" Not that Bruno didn't have an excellent guess, of course.

"What do you think?" Alastair grinned back. "Not that I want to rush you or anything, I just thought I'd get out of the house for once and check and see how far you are with it."

Edited 2011-08-02 02:35 (UTC)

Bruno started to open his mouth to respond happily, stopped himself, then smiled just a little bit conspiratorially.

He suddenly started taking the short steps up to the MAC entrance at a half-turn in order to look back and gesture for Alastair to follow him. "C'mon up, I'll show you how it's coming," he said.

"All right!" Alastair followed eagerly, just as excited as Bruno. This plan had been a long time in the making, he was extremely curious about the impending outcome.

Bruno had given her his apartment number to check out the motorcycles, so she showed up the next day, knocking at his door.

She was still trying to figure out how she would pay for it--even if she set up a payment plan, she'd probably still end up spending all her money on books somehow. She didn't want to disappoint him, or not take what she hadn't paid for, so she'd figure out something. Having a motorcycle would be useful--it fit in small places and she wouldn't have to rely on creating familiars to get to distant places quickly. Plus she really should keep up her combat driving skills; she hadn't ridden a motorcycle since training at Dokusensha.

Pondering all this gave her a rather pensive expression when Bruno would come to answer the door.

If Bruno noticed her pensive expression, he didn't seem to make a point of it. When he opened the door and saw her he smiled brightly at her just the same as yesterday.

"Hi! Um... Maggie, right?" he said, looking a tad self-conscious (he'd had to poke back through the Network archives last night to remind himself what her name was.) He stepped back and aside to pull open the door and make space for her almost immediately. "C'mon in!"

"Thank you very much," Maggie said shyly. However cool and collected she was during the fight in which they met, she was in the far more anxiety inducing activity of social interaction, an arena not her forte. But hesitation as to what to say next stalled as she saw all the bikes and equipment.

"Wow, this is amazing. "

It did occur to him that she seemed a little bit shyer than he'd have guessed, but the subject of motorbikes being broached inevitably pretty much punted any specific thoughts on that right out the window.

"Thanks!" he said with genuine pride. "You like them?"

Maggie nodded. She wasn't an expert from a mechanic's point of view, but they were still impressive. "You put these all together yourself?"

"Well, not completely," he said in a tone that sounded more like an explanation than it did modesty. "Or at least, not from the frame up, that's onlyyy..." he scanned the room with his eyes for a moment, and then pointed to three separate machines in succession, two clearly unfinished and one not much more than a frame and most of an engine block, "this one, that one and that one over there. Those are going to be completely from scratch," he said with a grin, and even to the untrained eye they each definitely had something non-standard about the way they were shaped out.

He turned back to her and continued, "Most of the rest are put together from bits of bikes people had just junked or basket-case bikes that were being sold for parts. Sometimes when there was only one thing wrong with it!" He shook his head a little as if to say 'the nerve of those guys, am i right?' before going on. "But I did a lot of my own modifications by hand too," he assured.

"You obviously enjoy this very much," Maggie replied, glad to see his passion for his work. But she figured they should turn to the matter of business.

"Getting a vehicle would be a big help to me in my work. But... well, as we discussed, we need to talk about payment." Maggie couldn't help but turn red, rubbing the back of her neck nervously as she fretted about her finances. She desperately wished Michelle were here, as she's sure somehow she'd manage to exchange a giggle* and a smile for several bikes.

Money was a non-issue on the Shangri-La, everyone on board a refugee, but in the City...well, there were a plethora of sayings in regards to the value of money. Ignoring that fact was hard, and Blue had no need to fight too hard; there were systems in place to ensure he was never short of it. And given his lack of drive to spend much of anything, he was slow to learn and memorize the routine, but well familiarized before summer even hit.

The MAC was an obvious choice for one of the machines the dog tags were able to be used to access funds, given the fact that it all was designed specifically for imPorts. It was an afterthought, being there, but there was need to pick up a few things for the house. He patiently went through the steps of the transaction, tuning out much of the noise around him to the background until he was done. The bills folded in-hand as he drew his gaze away, upward, listening to the sounds of the minds around him coming into focus.

After being in the City for a full year, there were very few sights with the potential to genuinely make Bruno stop and stare for how non-sequitur they seemed. Soldier Blue casually retrieving a stack of bills out of an ATM turned out to be one of those.

It even made Bruno pause in the middle of manhandling the 300 pound motorcycle he was holding (in an awkward partial wheelie position, no less) out from inside of the lobby elevator, whose doors had just dinged open a second or two earlier. Granted, he was perfectly capable of lifting and carrying the bike like it was made of styrofoam, but getting thing and himself in and out of a passenger elevator was still a bit of a trick.

Bruno's mind was...enigmatic, at best, but by no means immune to giving off the similar sensation the emotions of other (more human) people near and around. Even so, like spotting faces in a crowd, the familiar ones were the quickest to come by. Blue wasn't long distracted, and he found himself returning the raised-eyebrow look, not expecting to encounter anyone familiar so suddenly.

Nor...anyone with a motorcycle in tow. Indoors.

He was fairly certain that wasn't typical, but all he could do was stare from where he stood outside.

Nope, pretty much the opposite of typical. But luckily Bruno was thoroughly jogged back to his senses when the elevator door got impatient with him and decided to start closing again. Bruno had to quickly pivot the front tire down to get in between and make them jerk back in the opposite direction.

Anyway, after that he did indeed get back with carefully but quickly maneuvering the vehicle out of the elevator, but once he had both two wheels firmly on the tile lobby floor he immediately shot Blue a friendly smile.

"Hi Blue!" he called over.

There was a slight delay between the greeting and Blue's reply, still fairly transfixed by the confusing sight in front of him and...little help from the thoughts he could hear; the humans around him found it no less odd, too.

"Ah," he finally shook out of it, turning fully to face him. "Hello, Bruno."

And then he hesitated again, glancing at the bike. "What are you...?"

It wasn't really out of any need to acquire transportation that Matsuka came wandering towards Bruno's apartment. He didn't really mind walking most of the time, especially not now that he had a dog who was almost always in need of walking anyway. But he was curious - and he'd like the chance to talk to Bruno some more under relatively normal circumstances.

So sometime on Friday afternoon, after work and Mouse's walk, he came knocking hesitantly at Bruno's door.

Right after the knock, Bruno's voice saying "Just a minute!" floated muffled through the door, but few metallic tinks and a couple of something-very-heavy-being-put-down noises later and his footfalls could faintly be heard crossing the apartment.

He pulled open the door and looked out with a clear expression of pleasant surprise. "Matsuka! Hi!"

Matsuka smiled back, a little shyly. "Hello. Ah, I'm not interrupting your work, am I?" Suddenly feeling very self-conscious, he raised a hand to rub at the back of his neck. "I saw your post, and I was curious, but if I'd be in the way..."

"Oh, no way!" he said and gestured Matsuka inside cheerfully. It didn't look like he was lying about the 'in the way' part either; if Matsuka remembered the video post well enough, he would definitely notice that there were a few less motorcycles and much more free floor space than there seemed to have been on Wednesday.

He might also have got an idea of what made that heavy noise a moment ago: in one of the more open areas closer to the main tool bench, there was a very naked and empty motorcycle frame sitting on the floor with what looked to be an entire engine block placed carefully on a tarp beside it, still dripping a little fluid from someplace or another. Bruno's hands and jacket were definitely looking a bit motor-oily.

"Sorry it's not the, uh... tidiest," Bruno said with his own hint of self-consciousness as he glanced back over his shoulder.

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Oh my shit HOW many months have I been promising an open log with him?

[sometime over the weekend?]

yusss

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I will be slowish, sorry. Also, let's say this was Thursday

AS IF I AM NOT SLOWISH man i love how i left this sitting open for an hour and forgot to post

I do that all the time

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