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Brand New Day: A Horrible RP (SevenxSome Drunkard)

"Well, to be fair," Moist said good-naturedly, offering a bright smile, "Gingers are kind of mutants anyways."

Billy watched Buck cross the room in a way that - Moist thought - was vaguely reminiscent of a puppy dog in a shelter, hoping the person passing by will be the one to take it home. It was a strange image, but Moist suddenly couldn't help thinking about it.

"You'd be a really sad puppy."

"What?" Billy asked, looking over at Moist with raised eyebrows.

"Nothing." Moist said quickly, and he felt Billy's lamplight eyes boring into him for a long time, perplexed, before he looked back at Buck - just in time to see the expanse of his bare, muscled back.

Moist didn't seem to really pay attention to what Buck was doing, but he did notice the way that Billy's eyes immediately snapped downwards and the way he began to shift uncomfortably on the spot, searching around as though it had occurred to him that something was missing. It went on for several painful moments until Buck was turning towards them again, smoothing out his shirt, and returning to the conversation.

"Well, see," Moist said, swinging his arms a little at his sides, "I was totally going to hang out with you guys -"

He could feel the eyes on him again, and this time they were calling him a bastard.

"- but I just remembered, there's a staff meeting tonight, and my boss will crack the whip if I'm not there, you know?" Moist finished, already moving for the balcony door, "I hate to bail, but you guys'll find something - Billy know's L.A. like - like something he knows really well. Hey Billy, while you're out showing Buck around, can you like, get his number for me? I'm gonna make it up to you, Buck, I promise."

And Moist the Bastard slithered out through the fire exit, leaving Buck and Billy standing in a suddenly much quieter and much drier room.
 
While Moist and Billy spoke, Buck turned his head slightly, trying to get a better feel for the apartment for some reason that he really couldn't figure out. He turned his head down to lightly kick at the laundry bag, nudging it up against the couch and letting it rest there.

"Oh." He glanced up when Moist announced that he had to go, and his eyebrows crooked a little bit in concern. "Oh. That sucks, man," he said lightly, lifting his hand and lightly waving at him as he slipped out of the fire escape.

Anyone else probably would have been concerned or surprised by Billy and Moist. The expression Buck affected when he looked at Billy, however, was mostly just amused, and possibly a little bit charmed.

"So where do you want to go?" he asked the blond, giving his best disarming smile. Alright, maybe it was a little more difficult here without Moist to lubricate the conversation. "I mean, if you still want to go somewhere. And if you don't, that's alright, I'm not trying to - force you or anything," he finished a little bit lamely, before dropping his face into his hand and laughing a little bit helplessly.

Buck rolled his shoulders back.

"..and if you don't know anywhere to go, I have, um, brochures. Back at my apartment. For touristy things. I mean, not that I'm a complete tourist. I did live here for a while when I was a kid."

He clicked his mouth shut and hummed.

Alright. Awkward.
 
For the umpteenth time that day, Billy felt a swell of panic in his chest as he came to the realization that, yes, he had been left alone with another human being and he was supposed to be social.

And it was all Moist's fault.

So when Buck began to speak, Billy found himself having to fight down the anxiety that was making a furious attempt to bubble to the surface; as far as he was concerned, he had already filled his quota for vapid remarks that day and wasn't allowed any more of them. Of course, he told himself that until the point where the redhead bestowed him with another of those smiles and suddenly Billy was spilling out:

"Ummghf."

And immediately looking like he regretted it. However, there had already been a particularly uncomfortable stretch of silence, so Billy blurted out the first actual word that came to mind:

"Museum." he said, and then gestured broadly with a hand, "Museums - there's - there's lots of them in L.A. If you like. I mean, if you're interested and want to go. To a - museum."

He made a valiant effort not to look like a kicked dog when he was done; he just looked like a punched one instead.
 
Buck affixed Billy with a slightly confused look, his head canting a few degrees to the side as he tried to puzzle him out. It was hard to determine if Billy was just nervous or if he didn't want him there. He had agreed to hang out, sure, but maybe it was just politeness.

Oh, well.

He wasn't going to second-guess himself just yet, but he continued to glance sideways at Billy as he headed toward the door with a nod. Shyness. It definitely could just be shyness. Maybe Billy had been a skinny nerd in high school - that kinda stuff could mess a guy up, right?

"C'mon," he said, lightly grabbing the doorknob, pulling it open. "I like museums. Hell, I like anywhere that's not my apartment right now, so you can't really go wrong?" And subconsciously, Buck took Billy on as a pet project.

He had come to LA to help out, afterall? Who said that by night he couldn't be a dashing, charming superhero, and by day a friend to a guy who maybe needed a little bit of social coaching?

"You're just gonna have to lead the way is all."
 
Billy trailed along behind Buck, closing the door behind him and locking it; there weren't many people coming through the building, and especially not on the sixth floor, and maybe he didn't have anything that would interest the casual thief - mostly just hoodies and books - but from time to time, some paranoid, anxious part of himself wondered if maybe someone would stumble upon his little laboratory one day.

And then they would know - and that terrified Billy, just a little.

"I could go wrong." Billy countered, but it was in an awkwardly playful way as he led Buck down the stairs, "I could take you to a torture museum, you know. That could go wrong."

He gave a tiny, visible shudder,

"I went to a wax museum a while ago - there was a medieval torture section. I'm not too proud to say I screamed, once." Billy admitted, looking embarrassed, "I ran into the executioner, is all. And then Moist accidentally knocked off Marie Antoinette's head - historically accurate, but I don't think it was appreciated."
 
Buck tilted his head back slightly and laughed, shaking his head as he plodded down the stairs. His demeanor was more like a college kid's than anything, hands stuffed into his pockets as he carefully avoided Moist's moist trail. "I don't know. Could you imagine the air conditioning breaking down in a wax museum during a heat wave or something?" he mused. "Just puddles of wax people everywhere. The stuff of nightmares, pretty much."

He halted once they finally reached the base of the stairs, holding out an arm to stop Billy, too, and - with very little regard for personal space - he reached down to take Billy's hand, splaying his fingers. "I've actually been to a torture museum before," he explained as he leveled the blond's hand out flat, horizontally. "During the Inquisition, they used to take pieces of wood - super thick toothpicks, I guess, and jab them in here-" it was at this point that Buck lightly touched the very tip of Billy's index finger beneath the nail, "-and would ram it in. Kind of pop the nail off, you know."

He released his hand, looking almost pleased with himself as he glanced at Billy, motioning for him to keep walking and lead the way.

"Then they'd stick the prisoners' hands in.. I don't know, soapy water or something, let it heal, and when the nails grew back, they'd do it all again. Not that I, you know, think it's awesome that that happened or anything." He paused for a beat. "But you have to admit that it's cool."
 
Billy was visualizing broad puddles of flesh-coloured goo congealing across the floors of a museum, topped by large moustaches, thick-rimmed glasses, and jaunty hats.

"It would work for the Wizard of Oz section anyways. Dorothy would get her comeuppance." Billy said finally, absent-mindedly sidestepping the trail that his minion had left in his wake; walking anywhere that Moist had recently been was a little like walking outside after a spring rainfall, just without the pleasant urge to jump in the puddles.

At the base of the stairs, Billy found himself stopping short when an arm went up in front of him; instinctively, he brought his arms up to protect his head, eyes bugging out in surprise only to have Buck indelicately take one of his hands and tug it towards him. With one hand still pressing absently against the side of his own neck, Billy watched as Buck splayed his fingers out.

"Oh." Billy said finally, standing in place for a long moment after Buck had kept moving, before catching up with him. There was a moment of considerable silence before he decided it was probably a safe subject - after all, Buck had been the one to bring it up, hadn't he?

"They use bamboo for that in Cambodia and Nepal." Billy said, stepping out once more into the sunlight and squinting at it, before leading Buck down the street, "But they would just sort of slip it into the nail bed a little and since bamboo grows so fast, they just let it do all the work over the course of a few weeks. They call it the bamboo manicure."
 
"Bamboo!" Buck echoed in surprise as his hands found his own pockets again, and he sounded oddly excited by the concept. Not that he was overly fond of slow torture, but there was something weirdly thrilling about it all. "I never would have thought about that. That had to be agonizing."

He was careful not to lag too far behind Billy, but he did keep his chin up slightly, staring a little too much at the buildings. It really had been a long time since he'd been in LA; it was a bit staggering to realize how different things were.

"They'd also - ah, I don't remember how it went exactly. Put a hot metal brace around your chest and stomach, and then stick a starved rat in there with you. It'd burrow in through your stomach and make its way up or down."

He cast a sidelong glance at Billy, grinning crookedly and almost apologetically.

"Sorry if I'm, er, being gross. I just think that stuff is kind of neat."
 
Some strange, distant part of Billy was relishing the conversation; as a villain, Billy had naturally gone through the phase of exploring the terrible things human beings had done to other human beings over the course of history, and he had been unsurprised to discover it was a nearly endless list. Some of the members of the E.L.E were fans of torture, and while it wasn't Dr. Horrible's style, he had decided it would do him well to at least have a basic knowledge of it - only, given Billy's eidetic memory, he had ended up becoming a walking handbook on the subject. It had impressed the Duchess anyways and, for some reason, had led her to discuss the finer points of fetish torture with him - a conversation that had left him huddled on his couch for several hours after getting back to his apartment, protecting his chest from any unseen nipple clamp enthusiasts.

"I always thought the Brazen Bull was - you know. Interesting." Billy said cautiously, taking a right turn,

"A huge, brass sculpture of a bull, hollowed out inside so there was just enough space for a grown man to fit inside. It was an engineering marvel for - for being made before common era. Looking at the technology we've only just started to create now, the ancient Greeks were lightyears ahead of us - they created a system of mechanical tubings just so they could cook someone to death and make their screams sound like an angry bull. Not only was it sick, it was original."
 
Buck actually winced at the description of the bull. "Can't say I've heard of that, exactly," he admitted, shoving his hands a little more deeply into his pockets, his nearly jovial expression evaporating a little bit. "That's some pretty awful stuff. Hard to think that humans are capable of it."

Unlike Billy, Buck had never been particularly overjoyed about things like that. Digging through history tended to sadden him instead of excite him, and he just shrugged a little bit as he tilted his head up again to observe the buildings.

"We're just lucky, I guess. I mean - maybe they were more technologically advanced, but hell, at least you'd never run into anything like that these days."

The sheer, earnest optimism in his voice was, if nothing else, sincere.
 
It wasn't so much enjoyment on Billy's part that had led him to his studies as it was a - professional interest. Most of Billy's life had been propelled by his innate frustration with the human race, with the ignorance and intolerance abound in what was laughably referred to as 'modern society' - most of the time it disgusted him.

But human potential was what had kept him from resorting to just blowing things up - what was the sense in it? He didn't want to add to the ridiculous slaughter that was already marring the timeline of human history. Or at least, he didn't intend to.

"Not out in public, anyways." Billy replied darkly, shoving his hands into the pockets of his sweater, kicking at a stone that his shoe met with on the sidewalk, "Plenty of torture going on behind closed doors in this country."

It was probably a heady subject for a first meeting with someone and the contrast between the two men couldn't have been any clearer than it was in that moment, and perhaps Buck would have been left with an appropriately dreary opinion of Billy if it hadn't been for what happened next.

"We're, uh, here." Billy said finally, prising open the door to what looked like a large, modified suburban home; once Buck stepped inside, he would discover that the museum of choice was not, in fact, a torture museum.

The inside of the place was lined with shelves from floor to ceiling and it was covered in - rabbits. Rabbits of every shape, size, colour and material, and a large sign hung jauntily above their heads proclaiming:

'Welcome to the Bunny Museum: Have a Hoppy Day!'

"S'bunnies." Billy added pointlessly.
 
Buck had been ready to argue, to pitch a campaign defending humanity and its collective set of ethics. He was preparing for it, really, when he stepped up to the museum behind Billy, had opened his mouth to speak- but instead of a lofty, well-formed argument, he exhaled a sort of .. squeak.

"Bunny museum?" he echoed quietly, mouth still slightly agape. It was a little hard for him to shift gears like that, and he shook his head a bit, trying to knock the conversation about torture out from the forefront of his mind. "Bunny museum," he repeated, turning slightly to look at Billy with both of his eyebrows raised high on his forehead. He continued to stare for a moment, stunned, before a grin cracked the lower half of his face and he laughed, suddenly delighted.

"This is amazing," he said, and apparently meant it.

With another laugh, he began forward, not waiting for Billy as he made a bee-line for a pen full of dwarf rabbits near the entrance. "I didn't know this place existed."
 
Billy wasn't great with people, he never had been - in a way, other human beings had always seemed alien to him and he often felt he needed to thoroughly study each of them to figure out how they functioned, to understand how it was that they formed meaningful relationships, how they interacted so fluidly with eachother without so much as a twitch or stutter.

He wanted to know what the secret was to being one of them.

But because people were so confusing and complicated for Billy, he often came across as being a little strange, even when he was trying to do something as simple as order a coffee from the store down the street as he bumbled his way through the process and had trouble making eye contact with the gothic barista because her mouth piercings gave him the willies.

Standing inside of the museum, Billy found himself especially certain he had made another of those stupid social moves because, ultimately, his reasoning for taking Buck there had been based off of one simple notion:

Everyone likes bunnies.

But once he was surrounded by them, he was suddenly feeling like an idiot, a feeling that grew exponentially as Buck stared at him; it went on long enough that Billy began to fumble nervously with the drawstrings on his hoodie, barely fighting the urge to pull the hood tight over his face to hide the misery of his social ineptitude.

Of course, then the redhead's face split into a grin, and Billy felt as though he was going to have a heart attack in that instant because the dazzling white smile was so painfully familiar that he could have cried.

But he didn't. Because bad guys didn't do that sort of thing.

Instead, he watched, stunned, as Buck headed over to the rabbit pen, enthused. After a long hesitation, Billy tottered after him;

"It's - not broadly advertised." Billy admitted.
 
Buck hadn't expected Los Angeles to start out like this. He had anticipated a lot of quiet time by himself in his flat, getting re-acquainted with the city. Hunting down Dr. horrible. Not in a million years did he think that he'd be holding up a white and gray bunny to a stranger's face, encouraging it to lick his nose.

"Come on," he coaxed, gently tickling his fingers into the rabbit's side, "give him a kiss." His words were a little high, peppered with amusement, and he laughed again, pulling the rabbit back to hold it against his chest. "This is great. No, really. I taught a kindergarten class back in Ohio, and we had a classroom rabbit. They're adorable little poop factories."

The redhead ducked down, kissing the bunny between the ears.

No, he hadn't quite expected things to turn out like this, but he wasn't complaining. It was a nice temporary distraction, and he cuddled the bunny for a moment, before attempting to pass it into Billy's arms.

"Crazy about the superhero scene in LA," he said a little enthusiastically. "We didn't have a lot where I moved from."
 
As Buck held the little bundle of fluff up to the light and observed it with the utmost enthusiasm, it occurred to Billy that he had managed to inadvertently make one of those rare, positive social moves. Not only had he conversed with a complete stranger and had lunch with him, but Buck was the first person - besides Moist and the landlord - to come into his apartment. Ever.

On some level he was aware that this should have been a positive moment for him; he should have been cheering internally, he should have been thrilled that he might have actually made a friend, but that wasn't what Billy was thinking about.

Standing frozen to the spot with a bunny rabbit flicking its whiskers against his cheek, all Billy could think about was how utterly terrifying the whole thing was. Science was simple - if a mistake was made, it was easy to see where.

But with people, there was so much room for error - the variables were endless. People were the most complicated kind of equation.

He swallowed down as much of the anxiety as he could, but it welled back up again and threatened to spill out as a whimper when Buck tried to ply him with a bunny.

At first Billy resisted, looking at the rabbit as though it might implode but he eventually gave in, mechanically putting his hands out to hold it. The rabbit did nothing, save for staring up at him and occasionally wiggling its nose; Billy stared back. He attempted to wiggle his nose as well, with minor success.

"Plenty of heroes here." Billy replied finally, still watching the rabbit as though unsure of what he should do with it, "More than the press lets you know about - they just focus on one or two -"

The word 'tools' nearly came out, but he resisted, finishing lamely with,

"- people."
 
Buck wasn't in the habit of questioning or thinking about social habits. He acted on impulse, mostly, spoke and did without really thinking about it - which was precisely how he had ended up in a bunny museum. He grinned a little apologetically at Billy, leaning forward to take the rabbit from him. "Sorry," he apologized with a chuckle, leaning down and letting the rabbit back into the pen. He straightened up after that, wiping his hands on each other, then dusting them off on the thighs of his jeans as he tipped his head at Billy, as if indicating him to lead on throug hthe museum.

"Yeah. Captain Hammer, right? He's pretty famous, even in the Midwest, you know. A couple of others, too, but none like him."

He shrugged a little bit, dismissing the thought.

"Some pretty famous villains, here, too. Dr. Horrible? He's a pretty thorny bastard, I hear." Buck's voice was conversational, almost jovial, but there was something weirdly cold about his face, his nose twisted a little in a sudden flash of disgust. He shook his head again, roughly, like a dog throwing water from its coat before letting out a bark of a laugh and lifting his hand to point slightly. "Sucks, what happened to him." He seemed to be motioning toward a man who looked suspiciously like Captain Hammer.
 
Billy trailed along after Buck, tucking his hands into the pockets of his hoodie and idly observing the endless display of rabbit paraphenalia; he had been to the museum before. At the time, he had told Moist he was going to go do Villainous Things, but instead of wreaking havoc or bringing down the government, he had ended up spending the day watching fuzzy bunnies and surreptitiously feeding them cherry tomatoes. Since his last visit, he could see that there were several hundred new items, an observation he attributed to his eiditic memory rather than the possibility he had visited a few too many times.

He tried not to look as uncomfortable as he felt, but the mention of Hammer was enough to send him into a brief facial spasm,

"Yeah," Billy intoned, "There's no one quite like Captain Hammer."

Of course, Billy was instantly aware of where the conversation would inevitably lead - and it did. He was still unprepared for it, however, and it was all he could do to keep himself from scuffing his shoe against the ground at the mention of his alter ego.

"Thorny." Billy repeated, rolling the word around for analysis; it came out neutral. He was toying with the idea of asking Buck to expand on the comment - in a brief, self-centered urge to have insight from someone other than the press or his own henchman - but then he was following the redhead's gaze across the museum. All he managed to get out was:

"What do y-"

But then the words died in his throat; the man was standing near a shelf full of bobble-head rabbits, looking pensive, his back was turned and he was wearing an argyle sweater, but Billy couldn't have mistaken him for anyone else. From the black boots to the massive build to the colour of his hair, Billy knew - without even needing to see facial features - that he was standing in the same room as Captain Hammer.

Panic welled up inside of him as Hammer turned away from the shelf; from the profile, he could see Hammer was currently the proud owner of what Billy could only describe as a 'hobo beard' and clearly hadn't cut his hair for several months, but it was definitely him - Billy barely resisted the urge to hide himself behind Buck's significiantly broader frame.

"Hey look, rabbits," Billy enthused, voice cracking slightly as he veered off to the right, "Let's go look at those."
 
Buck winced visibly as Captain Hammer's profile came better into frame. Poor guy, he thought distantly, but one of his hands clenched a little bit into a fist at his side. It was hard, sometimes, for him to decide which of the pair he resented more: sure, it was Dr. Horrible who actually executed the deed, but it was Captain Hammer's idiocy that led up to it.

Unconsciouisly, his hand flew to Billy's shoulder, fingers pressing urgently into it, stilling him.

"It's stupid," he whispered as if he didn't want Captain Hammer to hear, and his voice was weirdly fierce. "That - woman. I mean, it sucks for him, but... Putting her out like that in front of everyone. Advertising her as a superhero's girlfriend. That's like slapping a giant target onto her forehead and telling the villains to come after her." He paused for a moment, swallowing a lump in his throat. "I mean, Batman had a secret identity to keep Lois Lane safe, didn't he? I don't know why Hammer couldn't do the same thing."

He stared at Captain Hammer for a while, his eyes wide and mouth pressed into a terse line, before he seemed to realize just how tightly he was holding Billy's shoulder. With an apologetic grunt, he pulled his hand away, shoving it into the pocket of his pants and trying not to look like he'd bitten into something sour. "You're right, though, we should .. bunnies. See more bunnies. No reason to bug the guy while he's off the clock, right? He probably gets that enough."
 
Billy felt the fingers clamp down and as Buck gradually became more tense, it occurred to him that it was like being held in a vice grip.

Buck's voice had dropped to a near whisper close to his ear and the blonde's eyes widened as a result of the increased pressure on his shoulder and the fact that he was utterly incapable of putting more space between himself and Captain Hammer; instead, Billy just sort of vibrated on the spot, a bundle of neurotic energy as panic rolled around inside of him like clothing on a tumble dry cycle.

This, he was sure, was the worst possible scenario - and yet, amidst all of it, Billy could only manage to say one thing:

"Lois Lane was Superman's girlfriend." he said weakly, "Batman was human; he didn't have the luxury of friends."
 
"I thought Superman was human," Buck answered, and his eyes finally cut away from Captain Hammer. His hand dropped to the small of Billy's back, gently ushering him around a corner and toward a wall-sized portrait of a pink rabbit made with jellybeans. "Super man, doesn't that imply humanity?"

His face was flushed slightly. He had lost his cool a bit back there, but to apologize to that would be admitting it, and he didn't want to open the door to questions about his weird behavior. Instead, he just leaned forward to get a better look at the jellybean mosaic, curling his fingers around the velvet-covered red robe that kept museum spectators from getting too close and ruining the art.

"And anyway, whoever's girlfriend she was-- she still got kidnapped, didn't she? Human or not.. trying to foster relationships like that, it's dangerous. Selfish."

Buck clicked his tongue, glanced out of Billy from the corner of his eye, and tried his best not to feel like a raging hypocrite.

".. not that I have any real say on the matter," he finally said with another little grunt, reaching up in an attempt to rub the pink from his cheeks. "I forget that I'm in the city, I guess. My opinion doesn't hold any weight here, huh."
 
"Superman was Kryptonian." Billy replied, voice pitching a little higher when a large hand pressed to his lower back; for a strange moment, it occurred to Billy that he could feel Buck's body heat through his hoodie - and that Buck was easily pushing him along with one hand and little effort.

He needed to work out.

"His hero name was given to him by reporters." he said, staring blankly at the portrait in front of them; it took him several long minutes to realize what he was staring at - it was a picture made of candy.

"I think Superman sought out affection because he was tired of living in a world where all he saw was chaos." Billy added, peering back nervously over his shoulder; he could see the sleeve of an argyle sweater and snapped his head back so quickly that his neck made an unfortunate cracking noise. He winced, but continued on, "Living in a world where all he sees are people hurting eachother constantly. He - he needs Lois. Or he'll stop caring. She's his anchor even though he's superhuman; gives him more power than any yellow sun could."

Billy fidgeted on the spot, overcome by embarrassment,

"I think this should go into Le Louvre." he said, half-hearted sarcasm forcing it's way out of him, "We should call the curator and let them know they're missing out on a masterpiece."
 
Fortunately for Billy, Buck was too pre-occupied trying not to be pre-occupied as Billy glanced back and forward again, only really tuning in halfway through his spiel. He listened, digesting it for a moment, before he glanced over at him, eyebrows knit thoughtfully.

"I don't buy it," he said thoughtfully. "Not the Louvre thing. This thing should totally go in the Louvre. But Superman -- he shouldn't have to have an anchor. He should just.." Buck stumbled over his words, not really sure how to say what he meant, despite his expression being incredibly convicted. "He should do it because he loves to do it. Because he loves.. people. The world."

He bit his lip, then his tongue, rubbing the back of his neck. His face was growing red, embarrassed, but he couldn't seem to stop.

"He shouldn't need incentive to be a good man. To be a hero. Does that make sense? Maybe just to me. I guess I just get-" he stalled, seeking words again, "-annoyed. By what I see. The news, and .. heroes. And stuff."

And then he bit the inside of his cheeks.

"Huh, I'm sorry. Not really first date conversation material, is it?" It was a joke.
 
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