Despite promises about sleeping in horribly late, the scent of coffee began to drift through the suite by ten in the morning. Not much more than coffee, though; Loki has never been one for bothering with breakfast when there's enough cream available to go in his coffee. The morning's drifted away in a sunny haze, and as noon hit, he's made his way to the balcony to watch the ocean.
     Watch the ocean, and check his email on his phone. It wouldn't be a real vacation if he didn't have internet access. He sprawls out in a chair, rumpled khaki shorts and a white button-down shirt currently entirely unbuttoned, with his feet propped up on a second balcony chair. An untouched room service tray of assorted pastries and muffins sits on the coffee table in the living room the balcony connects to, waiting in vain, sugary hope to counter-balance the trendy new all-coffee diet.

     Pres has slept, and slept hard, not budging from his bed before eleven. Around noon, he staggers out with his cane, wearing a pair of striped pajama bottoms but no top, rubbing his chest and yawning as he limps his way out to the balcony. "Morning," he mumbles, sleepy-eyed with rumpled hair. "Mind playing waiter? Balancing crap and a cane doesn't work so well."
     He flops into a chair, settling back and glancing over at the water. "Nice view. You know, I could get used to this."

     By way of an answer to the question, Loki strolls back into the living room, and grabs the room service tray along with a fresh cup of coffee for Pres. He slides both onto a table on the balcony, looking out over the stunning view for a moment. "I'm more a fan of cityscapes. But I have to admit this place has its own appeal."
     His look over Pres when he sits back down isn't exactly covert, but it's also not much more than the general estimation a friend might make of someone's wakefulness. "I can turn the music on if you want. I think I left the remote somewhere around here. Last I tried, it got stuck in a loop of early seventies rock."

     "As much as I'm a fan of 'Free Bird' as the next college guy, loops aren't my thing. I've always loved Oahu, though." Pres looks over at the beach, then at Loki as he takes the coffee, nodding his thanks. "...I need to ask you something which might change your opinion of me for the worse." He looks terribly serious, and a bit
resigned.

     Loki picks up his own coffee, halfway to a defensive move. "Unlikely, but neither of us is going to know until you ask. So, ask."
     Besides, it might make some of my subsequent suggestions less awkward in comparison.

     "I want to rig a credit card scam," Pres answers bluntly, "to siphon off enough cash somehow to pay for my operation."
     It's definitely blunt. and now it's out there. But not without explanation. "Mumsie doesn't care what I buy for myself, as long as it's not more than a few hundred dollars per charge. Five hundred? No problem. More than that and she starts paying attention," Pres sighs and settles back with his coffee. "So if she won't pay for it one way... you're good with internet stuff, right?"

     Loki gives that some thought. "Internet stuff, sure. The kind of scam you're talking about setting up... That's a different level of expertise than I have." He doesn't look exceptionally shocked at the idea, or offended. Maybe a little surprised, though even that's disappearing pretty fast as he starts thinking through the practicalities of it. "How much do you need, total? Ballpark."

     "Between eight and twenty grand. It's an experimental procedure, insurance wouldn't cover it. I'm legally of age, so mumsie can't stop me, except by not giving me money," Pres answers wearily. He finishes off his coffee with a rude slurp, looking moodily into the bottom of his cup. "The exact amount ... I don't know. I'm just running out of ideas, and while mumsie's okay with the idea of me being a goddamn cripple for the rest of my life as long as she gets an F.D.R. out of it, I'm not."

     So about what this room is costing for our stay. Your mother has some fucked up priorities.
     Loki picks up Pres's cup, and stands. "Let's leave her out of it for a minute. Trying to work out how to manipulate her obviously hasn't been working, and getting the money out of her another way is an idea with a lot of moral satisfaction, but higher long-term risk than I think is necessary. So we back up and look at this another way."
     He sweeps back to the bar to refill Pres's cup, and brings the coffee pot back with him. "Are you committed to anything you can't get out of for this summer yet?"

     "I'm all ears if you have other ideas," Pres mutters. He leans to grab a pastry, chewing on it morosely. "This summer? Nah, I haven't made any plans so far. didn't seem much point. Mumsie'll want me back home, but I already decided she can fuck herself. Why?"

     "Come stay with me in London," Loki says. He picks up a muffin and a plate, and begins to disassemble the one onto the other, not showing much interest in eating it. "That gives me two, three months to work on my dad whenever he swings through, and you know what my London dad is like. He gives that much to indie productions of gender-swapped morse code Sartre plays, if someone hits him up for it on the right day. And unlike my Hollywood dad, he doesn't care what your mother thinks."
     He tries a smile for Pres, not very well. "At worst, if that fails, I go to plan B. Trying to bribe my Hollywood dad into paying for it by promising to go back to college. I could probably talk him down to part-time classes in London, if they were in business. I don't know. He gets along way too well with your mother for it to be any kind of easy sell."

     There's a pause during which Pres chews slowly on his danish, thinking about it. "I don't want you asking your Hollywood dad. He'd put too many strings on it, and I'm not going to have you sell yourself to help me." His expression is stubborn to the point of mulish on this point. "I don't see any difference between it and handing you spandex and telling you to hustle on the street."
     He glances at Loki with a flickering, brooding look, then picks up the coffee refill with a nod of thanks. "I dunno. I feel - weird asking your family for help, you know? I mean, I'm not doing anything this summer, so I don't mind visiting, for at least part of it. I just ... doing it to have your dad help seems ..."

     "Look," Loki says, just a touch impatiently, "I agree about my Hollywood dad, but my London dad is a sweetheart, and he's likely to offer the instant he knows it's an option. I haven't told him so far because it's not my place to start talking to anyone else about your medical issues. I'd rather be in debt to my dad than risk being arrested for credit card fraud, if it comes down to that."
     He leans back with his coffee, and says more quietly, "I was planning on asking you about visiting London over the summer anyway. Things there are--weird, lately, and I could stand to have a friend around who's not in the band. Or obsessively working on academic research. And you could use a chance to get out of convenient flight distance of your mother, somewhere that you have a good excuse to go."

     Pres watches you, then nods slowly. "Yeah, okay. Why not? It beats staying in L.A. for the summer, with my leg the way it is. I'll think about it - your offer, I mean. But sure, I'll come to London. Why're things weird?"

     It's Loki's turn to stare at his coffee. "Long story. I met someone, and--it's not really worth going into the details." He looks up with a shrug. "It'd be good to have you there. It gives me an excuse to do something besides stare at the walls when I'm not at practice, right? And you get away from L.A. summers and your mother at the same time. Win-win."

     "Oh." Pres deflates a little. "Okay, yeah, sure." He puts his coffee down, picking up his cane to leverage himself to his feet. "I'm gonna go shower and get dressed. Want to go find the game room or hit the dolphin lagoon?"

     Loki says briskly, getting it out of the way now, "I met this one guy and I can't figure out if he's crazy, or I'm crazy about him, or if he's just really fucking annoying and driving me crazy that way. It's been messing with my head, and I'm hoping I can skip thinking about the whole situation while I'm here." He shrugs, pushing his chair back. "That's all. Let's check out the game room."

     "Okay." Pres accepts it. He doesn't make any other comment just yet. He just looks blank, not sure what to say. "Yeah, okay." He heads into his bedroom, closing the door behind him to get dressed. What the fuck?

Posted by rowan at March 29, 2009 08:26 PM