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[brooklynishere]

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finally!!

[allucinator]

The thing is, they were never meant to work.

Chalk it up to gender, sure, and masucline roles. Chalk it up to two guys never meant to be anything but friends who got each other off, to boys who were killing time until a woman came along and let them in her bed. And then, when those excuses don't hold up, chalk it up to rivalries. Chalk it up to Manhattan and Brooklyn, the two boroughs utterly incompatible, the distance immense when all you can afford to do is walk. Or maybe it's just maturity, growing up, hitting seventeen and knowing that you had to grow up. Knowing that Santa Fe was waiting and he couldn't waste time on anything else, even Conlon.

Maybe it's just that it's too hard to keep going without bringing emotions into it.

So they're not a thing, not at all. And yet tonight (nearly midnight, he thinks, and his body protests, knowing they have to wake in less than six hours, but there's nothing for it), it's towards the Brooklyn docks Jack stumbles. Not home. Not where Race and the others are waiting. They're good guys, great guys, but a leader can't afford to be weak. He can't afford to limp in, all bloody and soaked, his ribs cracked and his face all beaten.

So he goes to Brooklyn. It's a long story as to why he's so fucked up and how he managed to walk all this way, but the point is: he sticks to the alleys and the side streets, and sooner or later he reaches where Spot's boys linger. Even then, he doesn't show himself: just whistles, three rising notes that sound more like a bird's chirp than a signal. They'd invented it years ago.

The others look around, but that's fine. Just so long as it's Spot who recognizes it, and Spot and Spot alone who comes to see what Jacky boy wants at this late hour.]

Teen Dance Movie

[brooklynishere]

It's finally lunchtime. It's only lunchtime. Spot has been at his new school a handful of hours and he is already done.

In the school's defense, he was pretty much done with it before he even arrived.

He gets why his grandmother felt the need to move him halfway across the country, he does, it isn't like he liked his old school, and yea it was probably nice to not have a million and one questions from assholes about why he was away for so long - or, worse, defending against all the fucking rumours that had sprung up.

But he misses the friends he did have, and he misses his ballet teacher, and his grandmother won't pay for one here because the entire point of getting a scholarship to this place was because of the excellent ballet programme, except that excellent ballet programme is just an ordinary class full of other people and that comes with a whole host of other issues.

Being far away from his dad and closer to the aunt and cousins he can actually tolerate is great and all, but it's still new and different and, honestly, intimidating - and Spot likes none of those things. So he's scowled his way through multiple introductions already this morning and now he has to deal with a packed out lunch room and finding a place to sit where nobody will bother him. Great.

The room is basically a wall of sound and he's seriously considering turning off his hearing aids.

Tabula Rasa

[brooklynishere]

Like many people in poverty, Sean Conlon was not exactly a fan of the status quo, but what the hell was he going to do about it? He focused on what mattered - looking after himself, and sharing whatever excess he had with the small gang of boys who'd taken shelter in the same corner of the slums that he had.

(The fact that he always begged, borrowed or stole enough to have excess was neither here nor there)

Those in power don't care about people like Sean, and that's the way he likes it - he's careful about his acquisitions and he doesn't make a splash, so when certain groups pull their big showy heists and cause the slums to get overridden with law enforcement for a few days, he can't help but glare at them when they show up to dish out their charity once the heat has died down. He never takes it, he's too proud for that, but he'll encourage the boys to - whatever gets them what they need.

He recognises most of that group by sight, now, and he's had more than a few shoving matches or near-brawls in the street when he runs into them and picks a fight over nothing. One of those fights ends in a black eye for Sean, a bloody nose for the boy he's fighting with, and somebody threatening to call in the guard if they don't knock it off.

So Sean runs, dodging down streets he's known all his life, the route home practically programmed into his feet. Until his usual path is blocked off and he has to take a different turning, ends up in an area he's less familiar with because he knows it's a dangerous place to be. Too dangerous, as it turns out.

~~~


He blinks awake in a cage, there's a man he doesn't recognise sitting on a chair nearby, standing guard over a few similar cages - all unoccupied at the moment. His body is aching and his mind is fuzzy, he doesn't know how he got here or even where 'here' is, but he knows he wants to get out.

He sniffs the air experimentally. The man smells like a wolf, though the room is criss-crossed with dozens of other shifter scents of varying ages, and something about that makes him nervous. His eyes dart around trying to find some kind of escape route but while he can see a door it's clearly alarmed and he'd have to get out of the cage first, not to mention past the guard.

Just then, though, he gets incredibly lucky. Chaos erupts in another room and the guard goes running to see what's happening. Alarms start wailing and he can hear shouting, until suddenly the voices are all he can hear; the alarm cuts off abruptly and the building is plunged into darkness. As his eyes start to adjust to the light he realises that the cages have electronic locks - locks that are now open.

He doesn't waste any time, just bolts out through the exit door and into the alley beyond. He doesn't stop running until he's streets away and gasping for breath.

He can't just keep running though, he needs to get somewhere safe. Wherever that might be. He searches his clothes for any answers but there's nothing in his pockets and the closest he gets to something is a smear of blood on his sleeve that smells familiar, but not like him. He breathes it in for a moment before stripping off the shirt and his pants and dumping them into a pile of garbage out the back of a restaurant. He shifts and starts running again, criss-crossing busy streets and running through puddles and tracing back on himself until even he isn't sure where his scent leads, just in case they try and track him.

Then he finds a tiny splatter of blood on the ground, it smells like the one from his sleeve. He doesn't have any other plan, so he follows the scent, patiently tracking it back to the back door of a building that could be anything. It's dark by the time he arrives, and he's exhausted - too exhausted to force a shift so he can knock properly. He butts his head ineffectually against the door before giving up - the alleyway he's in is pretty secluded, he can take a nap here to regain some of his strength and try again later.

So that night anybody going near that door is going to find a peacefully sleeping leopard curled up outside it.

Dance dance revelation

[brooklynishere]

There were a lot of things that Spot liked about moving to Brooklyn to live with his grandmother, like living in the city, and being an entire state away from his father. There were a lot of things he didn't like, either, like being an entire state away from his ballet teacher.

He didn't want to ask his grandmother about lessons in Brooklyn, not when she could barely afford to keep him as it is. Not when his father finding out had triggered the chain of events that brought him here. He didn't have any other spare relatives to take him in if his grandmother kicked him out too.

So when he hears that there's a class trip to the Metropolitan Ballet, he rolls his eyes and groans along with the rest of the boys, but inside he's practically jumping for joy.

At least, he is until they actually get there. Then he's stuck with a bunch of rowdy teens as they get talked through the absolute basics of ballet and the history of the company, all of which he already knows, and he doesn't even need to pretend to be losing his mind from boredom because he is.

And then they go and watch a rehearsal.

The rest of the boys are muttering and joking amongst themselves at the back of the mezzanine level overlooking the rehearsal space, but Spot leans on the railing, his posture lazy and disinterested but his eyes sharp, watchful, taking in every move.
They're ushered on far too soon, and Spot trails after everyone else, lingering to watch until the last moment he can get away with.

In the afternoon they're supposed to have a class themselves, but the thought of going through beginner moves while trying to pretend he isn't as good as he is makes him want to scream, so while everyone's supposed to be getting changed he ducks out and goes exploring.

When he finds a studio unlocked and empty, he takes his chance and ducks inside. A short warm up and a quick hunt through spotify later, he's got his phone playing the piece from the rehearsal and he's trying out the sections he can remember for himself.