Wheelsy AU ~ Hollywood Nights

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The airport was crowded an d bustling with tourists, the sunlight outside pooling through the plate glass windows like honey. Starla didn't mind the wait. Security meant she could meet him off the plane, but she could stake out the baggage claim where he was suppose to come out!

She was dressed simply in a blue sundress and sandals, nothing fancy, that was for late tonight at the premier. For now she was just a country girl waiting for a country boy and hoping he hadn't managed to get himself lost in the bowels of the airport.

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[noteasytobepink]

"Well, you sound like hell." This was better than hello right? "So, do we actually employ Mr. Davis to watch the sky all night or is this a free public service he keeps us appraised of?"

[no_andy_taylor.insanejournal.com]

"M'tired."

Scrubbing at his face, he let out another sigh.

"He'll keep callin' until he falls asleep. Just tell 'im thanks for the report, an' it's been noted. He freaks out if you hang up or tell him t'stop callin'."

Wheelsy was full of eccentrics, especially after the slugs. Bill pretty much knew how to handle them all.

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"Well, you did fly three hours into the past. That will take it out of you," she offered softly.

"Is he suppose to be calling in on the 911 line though?"

[no_andy_taylor.insanejournal.com]

"Yeah. Been a long day."

Lowering the phone a moment, he took a drink then brought the cell back up again.

"He must've forgot the damn number again. When he calls back tell him he's on th'wrong channel, an' needs to report to the proper station, then give him th'number to the front desk."

Mr. Davis was a veteran, so he knew protocol, but he was also an old man, so there were times when he'd lose or forget the number Bill gave him to keep him off the emergency line.

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"I'll do that then. He's due to call back in about forty, and I was nice when he last called so no worries there." See? She could play by the rules! "I wanted to make sure he didn't have a special dispensation to dial in on the emergency line to report." That said there was the sound of a pencil scratching out notes on what to say.

"Anything I can do to help Bill? If I'm not mistaken I just heard a beer can, and you're not happy enough to be drinking because it's fun."

[no_andy_taylor.insanejournal.com]

"That's good. I appreciate you handlin' it."

She was turning out to be pretty good at the job.

"Maybe it's a soda," he replied, flicking the tab on the can. "I could be drinkin' 'cause I'm tired."

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"You're welcome. I don't mind being the friendly dispatcher voice in the night." She chuckled softly.

"Could be." Easy enough to admit that. "But if you were that tired you wouldn't be drinking soda as it keeps you awake and you've no reason for that. And if you were drinking beer to make you sleepy, well, you'd be asleep by now."

[no_andy_taylor.insanejournal.com]

"I just got started," he replied.

Which was true, he still had the rest of a six-pack and part of a bottle of whiskey to go.

"I'm already in my room, so you don't gotta be worried about me drivin' or walkin' alone anywhere."

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"Just got started with what goal in mind?" She asked. Simple question right? And of course she was suspicious! She'd already witnessed his tendency to drain a whiskey bottle when the harder aspects of unrequited love were in play!

"Hey, snap me a picture on your phone? Send it to the precinct site?" That way she had a destination if she had to pop in. "Bet it's a posh, Hollywood kinda place right?"

[no_andy_taylor.insanejournal.com]

"I ain't got a goal," he snorted. "T'go until I come up empty, I guess."

Glancing around the room, he shrugged.

"It ain't bad. S'got a pool."

Pulling the phone from his ear, he fiddled with it.

"How do I do that, s'this little button the side, right?"

Damn cellphones.

[noteasytobepink]

"Yep, should be, that's the shortcut button we set up anyway." Cause she was apparently better at reading instruction booklets than he was?

"And hey, pool! I'm jealous! Why don't you have a pool for me to laze at Bill?"

[no_andy_taylor.insanejournal.com]

"'Cause I don't need a pool, an' they're expensive."

He snapped a photo of his shoe and sighed.

"Dammit. They're also a pain to keep clean, an' attract critters, like deer an' raccoons."

Bill had handled such calls on the job, he didn't need the hassle when off it.

Trying again, Bill managed to take a picture of the room, including the small living space, the door to the bathroom, and the TV. The phone popped up with an address book, and Bill was able to find the station out of the listed contacts.

"Got it. See, ain't much, but it's alright."

[noteasytobepink]

"But Bill...pooooool. I could wear a swimsuit, and that young deputy would choke on his own spit, and just think, a nice swim after a long day of work..." Ah, pools. Not that she ever really had them growing up but!

"Yep, I see. It's nice. Hotelish, but nice. Where is the Hollywood glamour and glitz? You alone there?"

[no_andy_taylor.insanejournal.com]

"Tell you what, you go on ahead an' start diggin'. Outta have a decent size pool by next summer."

Aluminum crinkled as he finished off his beer and crushed the can, and he got up to go grab another from the mini-fridge.

"I'm alone. An' I don't need glamor an' glitz tonight."

[noteasytobepink]

"Bill, I'm hurt. Hurt and offended that you think it'd take me a whole year to dig something that small." Rea;;y? A good size latrine or ditch wasn't too much smaller and it was just a few hours worth of work for a well planned one of those...

Ah, one can down then. "You gonna fill me in or am I going to have to shake it out of you?"

[no_andy_taylor.insanejournal.com]

"I'm sorry, just remember to be careful which side of the house you dig on. Wouldn't want you hittin' a sewer line or somethin'."

The new can hissed as he popped the top, and he took a seat in a chair beside the small table in the room.

"Front desk duty really that borin'?" he asked when she threatened him to spill. "Outta be a pack of cards in the drawer there."

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"Of course, if I decide to slave away for your future lounging, I shall check things out properly beforehand." Ah, yes, this would be the 'dry' tone.

"And yes, your front desk is boring. So I moved the phone to your desk. You've got a better chair." And it was already broken in! And yes, he could probably guess she had her feet propped up on the desk too!

Her initial thought of 'Who do you think I am, Gambit?' would really be helpful now. Instead she swallowed away the lump in her throat because Morph would have loved it, then sighed. "And well, you know I'll take a good shaking over desk work any day. You think I couldn't shake you with one arm?"

[no_andy_taylor.insanejournal.com]

"Don't you go adjustin' nothin', I've got that chair set the way I like it."

Lapsing into silence, he reached over and snagged the whiskey bottle from the nightstand; he poured a drink out into the plastic cup he brought in from the bathroom.

Taking a drink, he swallowed hard, wrestling with what to say.

"Starla isn't comin' back t'Wheelsy." That was somewhere to start.

[noteasytobepink]

"I'm not adjusting, I'm...spinning." Now at any rate.

Oh. Hmm. How to handle this one?

"I'm sorry she confirmed that Bill." Because, really, he had to have been thinking about the fact that she might not. If there'd any hope the girl would have been Wheelsy...or Bill would have been out there earlier.

[no_andy_taylor.insanejournal.com]

"I really thought she was comin' back."

He did. The facts and evidence might have been pointing in the other direction, but Bill had spent a long, long time blinded by love.

He drained the cup and poured again.

"I just... couldn't see her leavin' for good."

[noteasytobepink]

"I know you did, consciously at any rate." She liked to believe the man was bright enough that the subconscious things got in there somewhere. "I did tell you it's more surprising you stayed than the fact the other survivors left Bill." Because no matter how you looked at it, Wheelsy had been a nightmare for a little while, and healthy people didn't live in nightmares.

"Distance is what most people need to start healing. Distance tends to become permanent when they realize how much better they feel elsewhere." People picked up all these things and lived by them really. It just often took a shrink or therapist to help them realize WHY they felt better or worse.

[no_andy_taylor.insanejournal.com]

"She said she didn't feel safe, that it wasn't home anymore."

There were times Bill wondered what his staying said about him; if it was a sign of strength or stupidity. He must be stupid, because everyone else saw the benefit in leaving.

"I reckon if you go by that line of thought it'll be better for me that she don't come back."

He hardly believed that, but there was nothing he could do now regardless.

[noteasytobepink]

It said, quite frankly, that he was not normal. That he, like a few others with all the proper tendencies, was a hero who lived and dealt with terrible things in ways far different than most. Clarice could relate. That didn't mean she didn't understand how abnormal it was.

"Not her home, true. How would she fit back afterward if you think about it? Can she do the same job and live the same life she once did or have things changed in her so much that it's not a good fit anymore?" 'Home' was a place people often out grew or changed so much that they couldn't fit back into the same holes. That was why people moved Homes. "Wheelsy as it is now doesn't have a place for the shape of puzzle piece she's become."

So to speak anyway.

"I think it'll be better for you to have your answer, yes, because limbo sucks."

[no_andy_taylor.insanejournal.com]

"This sucks," he replied, and it bordered on petulant. Everything she was saying made sense, and none of it was helping him.

"I shouldn't've come out here, I shouldn't have tried tellin' her how I felt."

Feel, though it's a feeling tainted with misery, and blackened by the truth.

[noteasytobepink]

"Yes, that sucks to, you're right." Life just did that sometimes. "But you had to go, and you had to try. Now you can bleed the wound clean and let things heal." Because she was practical like that.

"You got years of pent up emotion and twisted attraction in you Bill. Enough so, and stewing so long, that it was interfering with your real life instead of the one you wanted in your head."