(no subject)
He's shepherded in by three police officers, one in front of him and two flanking his heels, grim scowling faces set in place. The man they've escorted is calm and blank-faced, tall and broad-shouldered, young enough to possess the energy to need three men twice his age accompanying him. His wrists are cuffed in front of him, but he doesn't seem fazed by it at all.
They lead him into another room, where the man sidesteps his entourage to speak with an appalled secretary, face splitting into a wolfish grin that warps his handsome expression into something vaguely hungry, very dark. One of the officers seizes him by the arm and forcibly drags him through the next doorway, and he goes along with a sharp, brief burst of laughter.
"I'm not here to plead innocent," the young man drawls; he has a strange, curling voice, like oil through gravel. An officer grunts something at him and waves him off, telling him to 'save it' for whatever superior they're going to have him speak to. They must not be in any rush. Not after they checked his ID, saw who he is--because no one could feasibly hold the Mallory son on such 'light' terms.
June is cocky because he knows this. He's been here before.
He drops down into the office chair they roughly shove him toward in a room off to the far right of the hall, arranging the cuffs so his left wrist is locked to the arm. He jingles the metal link when he waves them goodbye, straining his forearm.
---
It's about an hour after all of this that Luc is headed for the same office that June is locked into, entirely unaware of the person inside because he'd been holed up in his office for the better part of the afternoon and evening. Writing the report and finishing tests had absorbed the entirety of his attention, and most of the people in the office are gone, having assumed he'd left as well.
As he advances with a clipboard in one hand, he paces evenly down the hall, eerily quiet despite the fact that the soles of his shoes are wood barely lined with rubber treading on linoleum that should announce his arrival yards ahead of him. Luc doesn't look up from the paper as he walks, calmly lifting his left hand every few moments to flick on another light switch until he slowly draws to a stop in front of the office.
If there's one thing to notice, it's that every move is extremely deliberate, precise, but impossible to pin down because they all run into each other like oil. Luc lowers dark eyes, a sort of bloody wine color in the low light of the empty building, to the knob of the office, sliding his key into it and opening the door.
He knows there's someone in the office before he even opens the door halfway, but he also sees the glint of reflection off of the metal of handcuffs immediately after that. The man takes his time in turning on the light, eyelids low, pale lips barely pulled back in acknowledgement of someone's presence.
Luc is of somewhat short stature, but his posture draws him much higher than that, the almost painfully correct arch to his spine and the black, nearly old-fashioned vest over a white office shirt, open at the collar, the slacks fitted to his hips and legs down to the leather shoes that have almost no heel to them at all--
He looks like he's missing a set of white silk gloves, but that's besides the point. The man peers from under a long, black sheaf of hair that almost entirely conceals his left eye, arching his brows ever so slightly.
"Hello."
---
June's eyelids flicker at the sudden disturbance of light, reclined in the chair as if he had been asleep, and the bright flood was what roused him sharply from slumber. It's a little frightening to find someone handcuffed to a chair in the dark, he imagines, peering with bare amusement at the stranger framed by the doorway of the office.
He doesn't straighten out of his lounged posture, cheek tilted on the black plastic of the office chair, one arm hooked over the back of it and body slanted off, legs outstretched on the office carpet. The wrist that's cuffed rocks on the arm of the chair, linking fingers around the metal and giving an absent tug, not with any intention of freeing himself.
There's no shred of fatigue in the man's expression, no sign of sleepiness or exhaustion for however long he's been locked in here, bored and abandoned, no sign of coming out of drunkenness or sobering his way through a headache. If any of it is there, it's very well hidden.
Depthless black eyes lid partially and then widen, carefully taking in Luc's appearance, lingering on his shoes and then his face.
June's smile is not exactly friendly, but it harbors some measure of invitation.
"Have you come to let me go?" He jingles the cuffs, to make the point.
---
Something nasty flickers at the inner corners of his vision, invisible to an observer but entirely un-ignorable to him. It's the whisper of a question--this one? maybe? why is he here? But it's instantly quelled by Luc's rational line of thought; probably some brat locked in for the night because he was to important to be thrown into a cell. That type of practice is common in law enforcement, and Luc notes with a slightly disdainful mental chuckle that it can stretch to extremes--but it's unlikely that someone left alone in an office overnight would be a very good target for him.
He offers the ghost of a smile in return, not making much of an effort because he doesn't see one put in from the other person's side, and then he steps toward a filing cabinet, setting the clipboard on the table immediately next to it.
"No." He doesn't offer an explanation, either, but his purpose becomes obvious when he pulls out report folders, bindings. Then Luc turns to close the drawer, tilts his head very slightly to the side, and asks a question entirely unexpected--even of himself.
"Would you like a cup of coffee?"
---
The dismissive denial isn't a surprise; June knows the next person he's going to see is someone in charge, someone with keys and an unhappy scowl to unlock him and let him go. They'll likely have talked to his father on the phone beforehand, and though he knows what awaits him at home, he's perfectly content to soak up the benefits of all of this playing into his hands. June has always enjoyed making a smug police officer squirm.
He arches a brow at the question, tilting his head even further on the back of the chair, using his free hand to rake the hair off his face and push it up on his scalp, gripping down to keep it there. His forehead is bare, a broad sweeping line of tan skin, creased in an expression of mild surprise, though it's not completely genuine.
"That's the first anyone's offered me any hospitality," June remarks. His teeth show when he talks, white and blunt; he hasn't moved from his position yet, showing no sign of intimidation or over-interest. "I don't see why not. It might keep me awake."
---
The smile doesn't fade at all--rather, it remains oddly fixed, until he speaks in return, his eyes making a routine sweep of the boy's appearance.
It's not slow or intentional, though he does take in details as he goes, before he turns away with supplies in hand. His voice is both strangely muffled and very audible at the same time in the stale air of an office like this, even as he speaks with his back to the boy and allows the door to click shut behind himself as he leaves.
"I'll be back in a minute."
It's actually roughly two and a half by the time he returns with a mug of coffee as well as his own that he's finishing, both held in one hand and the other cupping a few individually packaged sugar cubes. Strangely, he hasn't brought cream or anything of the sort to tone down the taste of the stuff.
The man moves to the table nearest June's seat, setting down the extra mug of coffee and pushing is slowly across the table until it's within reach, setting a spoon and the wrapped sugar cubes within reach as an option as well.
He takes his own seat and leans back in the chair, slowly tilting the mug. Luc intently observes the boy's reaction from over the rim of his mug, eyes half lidded. The harsh quality of the light in this room makes him look--quite frankly--dead. The contrast between his hair and his skin color, a sort of olive-toned fairness, highlights the darkness under his eyes highly visible, the almost fixed glassiness of his eyes setting some unknown distance between the outside world and his psyche.
---
June has changed his position by the time the other man returns, shifting out of earlier's relaxed slouch into a more level posture, spine straightened against the back of the chair, legs crossed with an ankle resting on the knee of his slacks, both hands gripping the arms of the office chair. His expression has lapsed into a gray blankness that flickers only slightly when the door is opened again.
There is an edge of tension in the man's shoulders and biceps, something that sits in the muscle under the skin without an outlet, buried below in an effort to keep it stored.
Many people have commented on how dangerous June looks in the most casual situations, ready to spring forward and hook his teeth in the nearest piece of meat, an unsettled glimmer in the dark emptiness of his eyes. There's hostility there, ever-present, cruel contempt waiting to boil to the surface.
The boy reaches for the mug when it's placed down onto the table, forgoing the sugar as if he hasn't seen it at all. He uses his unchained hand to raise the cup to his lips, but doesn't swallow. The heat of it warms his lips into a smile like barbed wire.
"So," comes drawled, conversational, not much of an attempt for small talk as it is fishing for something to give himself to do. "What on earth are you doing here so late, snooping through files in dark rooms?"
---
He takes his time in absorbing this greyness, fascinated by the sort of tension and ready-to-boil-over anger that he only experiences in extreme cases. Luc lowers his mug and sets it down on the table, lifting reddish irises to the incredibly difficult to ignore light that he had turned on upon entering the room, and then glances to the filing cabinet, before he rests his eyes on the boy's mug.
"I was binding a report and retrieving the materials to do so, though your purpose for being here merits the question just a little more than mine." Another very slight smile on colorless lips. The I.D. is clipped to his vest lapel; obviously he works here, and he works here a lot.
"That's a very fine Colombian coffee you're not drinking." His remark is infinitely softer, leaning forward on the table with an elbow to distribute the shift in posture, and he rests his chin in his palm, pulling his eyes from June's face to rest them on the surface of the table, where someone has carved something very creative.
This is obviously a popular place to lock people overnight. It's incredibly strange that he hadn't realized it, but then again...he hasn't had a reason to sit down at this table.
---
June may or may not see the I.D. card, and he may or may not have ignored it. His brow curves upward at the response, no room to get a word in edgewise before the ball is back in his court, though he doesn't feel much like explaining his situation to a stranger. There's none of the same glamor and lustre at the scene where it happened; it's died down to a dull husk of memory within the walls of this room that hosts his confinement.
Despite that, he gives a particularly sunny smile, but it bleeds to thick with insincerity that the effect is almost lost completely. There's something burning hot about the boy's gaze, like he's been standing in the sun for too long and it's embedded itself in his skin as a result.
"I'm drinking it," June returns, easily, lifting the mug a scant distance higher and swallowing his first mouthful while it's still tongue-scalding. He rubs his tongue over the rough of his mouth, then wets his lips to smear the moisture there and into the corners. "Don't you think it's my own business? I could be very self-conscious about my arrest. Maybe I don't want to talk about it."
He tilts his head back, showing more of his throat when he swallows more of the black coffee.
---
"You're not very self-conscious about it, no." Luc doesn't lift his eyes for a moment, but when he does, he takes a moment to push the hair from his own brow so that it isn't covered by the hair there.
"That is, if looking as bored as though you were locked in a pantry for something you consider extremely stupid...really means anything," he continues, the tone as un-presumptuous as they get. The pause in the middle of the phrase is exquisite, as if he's cultivating the last bit of thought, though it's mostly his inward breath to stave off a yawn.
His lashes are heavy, and he's tired, though his demeanor and his posture mask this impeccably.
"Either way, it was just an observation. You see," he smiles, showing a thin crescent of very white teeth, "I'm very bad at small talk this late at night."
---
In contrast, June seems more full of energy than any boy should at this hour, as if the darkness and time enliven him, added to the energy he gains from the coffee itself, not watered down or clotted with sugar and cream. "I see that," he answers amicably, entertained by that admittance, as if it's some tiny victory he's been handed, even though he knows it's anything but.
"It means something, doesn't it? Otherwise, you wouldn't have sat down to join me in my misery." June sets down his unfinished coffee, leaning into the table as best he can with his forearm braced over the surface and wrist locked at his side, looming a little bit closer.
The shift brings his eyes into greater focus under the light, hair loose over his shoulders and tickling his chin. It's very thin, but sleek, like something to wind your fingers in and braid.
June won't admit to himself, at least yet, that something about the way this man speaks is bothering him. It's not significant enough to make a deal out of, for now. "If I can make another observation. Do you like having these chats with every reckless guy brought in?"
---
His lips quirk into something more like amusement than polite friendliness, but it doesn't last for long, dying back into the background of a practiced human expression. It's extremely convincing; he's only ever met about two people that have been able to tell it from a genuine one.
Luc gently rubs at his own lips with the fingertips of his free hand for one moment, opening his eyes a little more once June leans forward, though he doesn't move back. He doesn't even acquire the slightest tension, and it's interesting how the closer the man moves, it almost seems to dictate just how open Luc's eyes become.
The smile lingers. That's incorrect of him; smiles don't usually correspond with widened eyes, and he's aware of a soft, metallic tsk tsk and a skittering, condescending giggle in the coldest back corners of his mind. His lashes drop back down, rendering the expression as disarmingly charming as it was before he'd phased into that slightly disturbing rendition.
"I suppose it does mean something." As if he's giving another victory over, the but the next part of his phrase takes it away just as smoothly, as if it had never been there. "...whatever the degree or extent." What he means is, however insignificantly, pathetically tiny it may be, because I might just be as bored as you. Luc is curious as to whether June will catch on and form a retort, or continue to pace at the end of his line.
So to speak.
When the question is asked, he answers it with the same closed-off way he'd replied to the very first question June had voice to him upon entering the room.
"No." A somewhat stretched smile, eyebrows lifted.
---
June's gaze doesn't waver, as resilient and scalding as steel laid out in the sun for hours, and he lays his hand on the table like he's making it his own. Fingers spread over the surface, stretched apart so the gaps between are wide, fingertips just barely digging down into its glossy finish.
He lingers like that, arched forward, held back only by the cuff on his left wrist. The boy seems to favor it when he can stretch the link to its limit, metal clattering, cutting into the tan skin of his arm. It's too dull to pull blood and he seems to know that, fisting the chain in his hand, exacting control over its blunted strength. Maybe he could snap it off, if he wanted to badly enough.
Voice mild, almost polite: "That doesn't matter. The extent of your hospitality aside, I wonder if I'm humoring you."
With the corners of his lips creased in a none too pleasant sneer, for a moment June looks like he might laugh. It would come out of him as bitter as coffee without sugar, a husky sound, hollow enough to make someone else immediately on edge, expecting violence. June is a turbulent, unpredictable creature; he fills rooms with charred blackness and humid rot.
"No? Then I guess there isn't any reason you should stay," June picks at darkly, drawing his hand from the table and abandoning the mug of coffee right where he left it.
---
Luc watches the boy's posture and his tendency to linger just at the limit of what binds him, though he's unsurprised by the idea that June may just enjoy being in a constant state of snapping whatever chains or whathaveyou are holding him back. He also has the distinct impression that the boy is entirely unused to being bound in the first place and dislikes the idea of it thoroughly, so his next move is entirely determined by that observation.
He allows June to say what he has to say, breathing slowly in through his nose as if he can just smell the carbon sting of burning that emanates form the person in front of him and finds it slightly offensive--or maybe even repulsive, but it doesn't show very much.
Luc then stands after collecting his own mug, dutifully unfurling to his full height before he advances, languidly picking up June's abandoned coffee and looking into it as if a few roaches might've crawled out of that filthy mouth. Then Luc glances at June's face, his mouth splitting and pushing his eyes to narrow, with an incredibly disturbing amount of warmth, into an incredibly friendly smile.
"I'm relieved you figured that out before I had to say anything about finishing up my work; it's always such a gauche act to cut a conversation short when it's only just begun."
And with that, he's turning off the light, closing the door behind himself with a soft click and without so much as a parting word.
---
---
He's brought in the following Thursday night, this time flanked by four men: two seizing June by the his upper arms in order to keep him frim lashing out with his fists, the other two maintaining a wide protective barrier around him to prevent the involvement of a bystander.
It's close to two in the morning; June is bleeding from a cut on his brow, a neat slice that's beaded blood in single smeared streaks down the curve of his face. The sweep of his dark hair covers most of the damage, fine strands sticking with sweat and diluted blood, messy around the black inferno of his glare.
June isn't coherent enough to make out much among the cruel, caustic, careless remarks he's practically spitting from the mouth like flames, though he's led along the same corridor as last time, forcefully jerked through the office doorway and locked to the same office chair as before. His expression is screwed up into an empty chasm of poisonous contempt, and he kicks the table when the men leave him there.
Light clicked off on the way out, he sits, stewing in the room's darkness.
---
On this particular night, Luc is simply staying late after having completed several tasks in the same afternoon in order to organize his desk. It's something he may not have time to do in the following days, which are bound to be busy, and he takes advantage of the fact that he's in the mood to clean things up and make sense of them before the long stretch of work begins.
He proceeds down the corridor in much the same way as before, minus the clip-board this time, and very slightly dressed down (only to a miniscule degree that could be considered more as just a a variation than a step down) in leather boots, extremely dark washed denim pants that button over to the side like riding breeches from an entirely different era, and a black office shirt with an open dark grey vest. The man's sleeves are rolled up, and he has nothing on his wrists or fingers because of the time he's spent in the lab, and as he pulls the chemical guard glasses from his face, he unlocks the door and reaches to turn on the light.
This time he knows full well who will be there, locked to the same seat, and is much more mentally prepared. "Hello," he states, much in the same fashion as all the other times he walks into the small room. He heads for a different cabinet, fishing around in it until he comes out with a box of staples, looking entirely pleased with having found his prey so easily.
---
In response, June says nothing. He has his feet on the table, fine dress shoes propped with his ankles crossed, both arms laid wide over the arms of the chair like he's too comfortable to change his posture at the other man's arrival. There's a neatness to what he wears that's entirely different than Luc's, as if the rich clothes were forced onto the broad lines of his body: pleated black slacks, stark white office shirt rolled casually up to the elbows, deep silk of a purple tie at his throat, jerked undone as though someone has grabbed it within the last hour. If he had a suit jacket to go over everything, it's no longer in his possession now.
He exhales in the dark, dispelling some of the tension that is visibly building itself into the structure of his bones. It's enough to give June back his ability to reply, but not much past that. "Fine night, isn't it." June is biting through his words, shredding them apart with his teeth. "I wasn't expecting you again."
Then, almost as a bitter afterthought, the boy's head tilted at an angle to add to his aggressive body language, "You never told me your name."
---
He arches one fine brow as he closes the drawer to the cabinet, staples in hand. When June makes the remark about expecting him, he gives over a slightly empathetic smile, which is insulting in and of itself.
"I'm afraid I can't say the same for you."
The man leans back very slightly against the wall, crossing his arms and observing. Yet again. One index finger gently, slowly taps on the opposite arm once, twice, before he becomes completely still.
"I didn't feel it was necessary, but my name is Luc." A flick of the eyes over the undone tie. "And you, if I'm not mistaken, are June of the Mallory family."
---
Nothing flickers in the boy's expression. He's used to having his name told back to him before he ever gives it, before he ever allows it given, and in this situation it isn't very different.
June stirs in his chair, fingertips digging into the arms of it, finding a stronger grip. "Luc, then." He chews it the same way he's chewed through everything he's said so far, tasting it on his gums and the roof of his mouth, feeling its shape. His eyes are as black as obsidian.
"Have you come to prod at the poor, chained-up delinquent again? Why don't you come a little closer?"
He lowers his feet from the desk, leans in the chair to prop his elbow on one knee, laying his free arm across.
---
"I don't recall prodding at you, but if you must know.."
He slants a look that might have been miscalculated, though it looks very deliberately coy on the outside. Then he shakes the box of staples gently.
"I think I won't, but thank you for the invitation."
Then he's on the move again, striding to the door as if he's going to leave.
---
June takes in a slow, heavy breath, holding it in his lungs before he lets it back out.
The boy is almost completely silent before he makes a move, almost completely calm when he finally shifts in the chair to seize the paperweight off the desk and throw it at the wall beside the door, aiming close to the man's head but some distance off.
There's undeniable strength behind the thrust of his arm, broadcasting itself to a frightening degree as the paperweight goes flying, suspended in air. June's eyes are narrowed into furious black slits.
---
Luc doesn't jerk away, but he does draw to a complete halt, as if the sound had frozen him over. Then, he turns his head, the hair over half of his face shielding his eye and casting most of it into shadow as he leans down to pick up the paperweight.
He wraps his fingers around the entirety of it before he stands, also slowly, moving into the boy's personal space. Luc pushes this boundary much further than necessary, moving into the space between June's knees before he leans down, close enough to see just how much red is lurking in the sepia tint of his eyes. They catch the light for just a moment at this angle before his hand is closing around June's throat, thumb digging mercilessly into the ridge of windpipe as he lifts the paperweight and digs a corner of it into the space between the boy's eyebrows.
Luc's voice takes on a very removed, thoughtful, and overall sub-zero quality as he speaks.
"You know, we are the only people in this building right now; I know how this place works like the back of my hand. And if the Mallory son, who has given the local police department more trouble than he could possibly be worth, somehow winds up with a split cheek the morning after his third incarceration in two weeks?" The thing digs in a little harder.
"Well.." He chuckles the word, softly, suddenly lifting the item high above the air behind him. "..I'm just so very certain that people would be clamoring to take credit for that little blow, and they haven't checked on you in hours." The man's hand is closing tighter and tighter on the boy's throat, his mouth curving into a very sharp-toothed smile.
"But unfortunately, June.." He sighs, and lowers the paperweight before he settles for gripping June's hair and wrenching the boy's head back. "..I'm afraid you just aren't worth the effort."
With that, he swiftly steps back out of the boy's space and reach. He tosses the paperweight up in the air and catches it, once.
---
June grits his teeth together at the press of the paperweight on his brow, but he doesn't flinch back at their proximity. There's actually a measure of detachment in the boy's expression, as if he's watching this through the eyes of a third party and not his own.
Despite the tension that tightens June's muscles, he doesn't feel..exactly threatened. It's nothing like that. There's the temptation of a fight, burning hot in his blood and boiling to the surface of his skin with every breath he steals from the air between them. There's the provocation of someone who is good at this, someone who he knows would not hesitate to strike him hard enough to crack a bone in his body.
And something about that enlivens June.
"I don't think a split cheek is anything I should worry about," he barks back, erupting into a cruel kind of laughter that tastes foul and is difficult to listen to without the instinct to step away from it. He says it in a way that bares just how reckless this boy is, just how unhinged and impossible to shatter--You can't fucking hurt me, asshole.
"In any case, Luc. I won't try and change your mind. But, you know where to find me, don't you." It isn't a question; June is grinning wide, like a dog showing its teeth.
---
Luc gives a soft, humoring exhale of air, shaking his head and looking at the boy the way he would a rabid dog.
"Please try to enjoy yourself in here. I think Officer Taylor would be terribly disappointed if you were in such a foul mood when he comes to pick you up in the morning."
With that, he hurls the paperweight, shattering the glass of the door window with the projectile. Then he paces over to the mess, hands on his waist, glancing down at the pieces of glass on the floor outside of the door. Luc looks to the table, to the boy, and then gives that same incredibly wide smile as he shakes his head, tsk-tsking softly before he closes the door after turning off the light.
"Goodnight, June."
They lead him into another room, where the man sidesteps his entourage to speak with an appalled secretary, face splitting into a wolfish grin that warps his handsome expression into something vaguely hungry, very dark. One of the officers seizes him by the arm and forcibly drags him through the next doorway, and he goes along with a sharp, brief burst of laughter.
"I'm not here to plead innocent," the young man drawls; he has a strange, curling voice, like oil through gravel. An officer grunts something at him and waves him off, telling him to 'save it' for whatever superior they're going to have him speak to. They must not be in any rush. Not after they checked his ID, saw who he is--because no one could feasibly hold the Mallory son on such 'light' terms.
June is cocky because he knows this. He's been here before.
He drops down into the office chair they roughly shove him toward in a room off to the far right of the hall, arranging the cuffs so his left wrist is locked to the arm. He jingles the metal link when he waves them goodbye, straining his forearm.
---
It's about an hour after all of this that Luc is headed for the same office that June is locked into, entirely unaware of the person inside because he'd been holed up in his office for the better part of the afternoon and evening. Writing the report and finishing tests had absorbed the entirety of his attention, and most of the people in the office are gone, having assumed he'd left as well.
As he advances with a clipboard in one hand, he paces evenly down the hall, eerily quiet despite the fact that the soles of his shoes are wood barely lined with rubber treading on linoleum that should announce his arrival yards ahead of him. Luc doesn't look up from the paper as he walks, calmly lifting his left hand every few moments to flick on another light switch until he slowly draws to a stop in front of the office.
If there's one thing to notice, it's that every move is extremely deliberate, precise, but impossible to pin down because they all run into each other like oil. Luc lowers dark eyes, a sort of bloody wine color in the low light of the empty building, to the knob of the office, sliding his key into it and opening the door.
He knows there's someone in the office before he even opens the door halfway, but he also sees the glint of reflection off of the metal of handcuffs immediately after that. The man takes his time in turning on the light, eyelids low, pale lips barely pulled back in acknowledgement of someone's presence.
Luc is of somewhat short stature, but his posture draws him much higher than that, the almost painfully correct arch to his spine and the black, nearly old-fashioned vest over a white office shirt, open at the collar, the slacks fitted to his hips and legs down to the leather shoes that have almost no heel to them at all--
He looks like he's missing a set of white silk gloves, but that's besides the point. The man peers from under a long, black sheaf of hair that almost entirely conceals his left eye, arching his brows ever so slightly.
"Hello."
---
June's eyelids flicker at the sudden disturbance of light, reclined in the chair as if he had been asleep, and the bright flood was what roused him sharply from slumber. It's a little frightening to find someone handcuffed to a chair in the dark, he imagines, peering with bare amusement at the stranger framed by the doorway of the office.
He doesn't straighten out of his lounged posture, cheek tilted on the black plastic of the office chair, one arm hooked over the back of it and body slanted off, legs outstretched on the office carpet. The wrist that's cuffed rocks on the arm of the chair, linking fingers around the metal and giving an absent tug, not with any intention of freeing himself.
There's no shred of fatigue in the man's expression, no sign of sleepiness or exhaustion for however long he's been locked in here, bored and abandoned, no sign of coming out of drunkenness or sobering his way through a headache. If any of it is there, it's very well hidden.
Depthless black eyes lid partially and then widen, carefully taking in Luc's appearance, lingering on his shoes and then his face.
June's smile is not exactly friendly, but it harbors some measure of invitation.
"Have you come to let me go?" He jingles the cuffs, to make the point.
---
Something nasty flickers at the inner corners of his vision, invisible to an observer but entirely un-ignorable to him. It's the whisper of a question--this one? maybe? why is he here? But it's instantly quelled by Luc's rational line of thought; probably some brat locked in for the night because he was to important to be thrown into a cell. That type of practice is common in law enforcement, and Luc notes with a slightly disdainful mental chuckle that it can stretch to extremes--but it's unlikely that someone left alone in an office overnight would be a very good target for him.
He offers the ghost of a smile in return, not making much of an effort because he doesn't see one put in from the other person's side, and then he steps toward a filing cabinet, setting the clipboard on the table immediately next to it.
"No." He doesn't offer an explanation, either, but his purpose becomes obvious when he pulls out report folders, bindings. Then Luc turns to close the drawer, tilts his head very slightly to the side, and asks a question entirely unexpected--even of himself.
"Would you like a cup of coffee?"
---
The dismissive denial isn't a surprise; June knows the next person he's going to see is someone in charge, someone with keys and an unhappy scowl to unlock him and let him go. They'll likely have talked to his father on the phone beforehand, and though he knows what awaits him at home, he's perfectly content to soak up the benefits of all of this playing into his hands. June has always enjoyed making a smug police officer squirm.
He arches a brow at the question, tilting his head even further on the back of the chair, using his free hand to rake the hair off his face and push it up on his scalp, gripping down to keep it there. His forehead is bare, a broad sweeping line of tan skin, creased in an expression of mild surprise, though it's not completely genuine.
"That's the first anyone's offered me any hospitality," June remarks. His teeth show when he talks, white and blunt; he hasn't moved from his position yet, showing no sign of intimidation or over-interest. "I don't see why not. It might keep me awake."
---
The smile doesn't fade at all--rather, it remains oddly fixed, until he speaks in return, his eyes making a routine sweep of the boy's appearance.
It's not slow or intentional, though he does take in details as he goes, before he turns away with supplies in hand. His voice is both strangely muffled and very audible at the same time in the stale air of an office like this, even as he speaks with his back to the boy and allows the door to click shut behind himself as he leaves.
"I'll be back in a minute."
It's actually roughly two and a half by the time he returns with a mug of coffee as well as his own that he's finishing, both held in one hand and the other cupping a few individually packaged sugar cubes. Strangely, he hasn't brought cream or anything of the sort to tone down the taste of the stuff.
The man moves to the table nearest June's seat, setting down the extra mug of coffee and pushing is slowly across the table until it's within reach, setting a spoon and the wrapped sugar cubes within reach as an option as well.
He takes his own seat and leans back in the chair, slowly tilting the mug. Luc intently observes the boy's reaction from over the rim of his mug, eyes half lidded. The harsh quality of the light in this room makes him look--quite frankly--dead. The contrast between his hair and his skin color, a sort of olive-toned fairness, highlights the darkness under his eyes highly visible, the almost fixed glassiness of his eyes setting some unknown distance between the outside world and his psyche.
---
June has changed his position by the time the other man returns, shifting out of earlier's relaxed slouch into a more level posture, spine straightened against the back of the chair, legs crossed with an ankle resting on the knee of his slacks, both hands gripping the arms of the office chair. His expression has lapsed into a gray blankness that flickers only slightly when the door is opened again.
There is an edge of tension in the man's shoulders and biceps, something that sits in the muscle under the skin without an outlet, buried below in an effort to keep it stored.
Many people have commented on how dangerous June looks in the most casual situations, ready to spring forward and hook his teeth in the nearest piece of meat, an unsettled glimmer in the dark emptiness of his eyes. There's hostility there, ever-present, cruel contempt waiting to boil to the surface.
The boy reaches for the mug when it's placed down onto the table, forgoing the sugar as if he hasn't seen it at all. He uses his unchained hand to raise the cup to his lips, but doesn't swallow. The heat of it warms his lips into a smile like barbed wire.
"So," comes drawled, conversational, not much of an attempt for small talk as it is fishing for something to give himself to do. "What on earth are you doing here so late, snooping through files in dark rooms?"
---
He takes his time in absorbing this greyness, fascinated by the sort of tension and ready-to-boil-over anger that he only experiences in extreme cases. Luc lowers his mug and sets it down on the table, lifting reddish irises to the incredibly difficult to ignore light that he had turned on upon entering the room, and then glances to the filing cabinet, before he rests his eyes on the boy's mug.
"I was binding a report and retrieving the materials to do so, though your purpose for being here merits the question just a little more than mine." Another very slight smile on colorless lips. The I.D. is clipped to his vest lapel; obviously he works here, and he works here a lot.
"That's a very fine Colombian coffee you're not drinking." His remark is infinitely softer, leaning forward on the table with an elbow to distribute the shift in posture, and he rests his chin in his palm, pulling his eyes from June's face to rest them on the surface of the table, where someone has carved something very creative.
This is obviously a popular place to lock people overnight. It's incredibly strange that he hadn't realized it, but then again...he hasn't had a reason to sit down at this table.
---
June may or may not see the I.D. card, and he may or may not have ignored it. His brow curves upward at the response, no room to get a word in edgewise before the ball is back in his court, though he doesn't feel much like explaining his situation to a stranger. There's none of the same glamor and lustre at the scene where it happened; it's died down to a dull husk of memory within the walls of this room that hosts his confinement.
Despite that, he gives a particularly sunny smile, but it bleeds to thick with insincerity that the effect is almost lost completely. There's something burning hot about the boy's gaze, like he's been standing in the sun for too long and it's embedded itself in his skin as a result.
"I'm drinking it," June returns, easily, lifting the mug a scant distance higher and swallowing his first mouthful while it's still tongue-scalding. He rubs his tongue over the rough of his mouth, then wets his lips to smear the moisture there and into the corners. "Don't you think it's my own business? I could be very self-conscious about my arrest. Maybe I don't want to talk about it."
He tilts his head back, showing more of his throat when he swallows more of the black coffee.
---
"You're not very self-conscious about it, no." Luc doesn't lift his eyes for a moment, but when he does, he takes a moment to push the hair from his own brow so that it isn't covered by the hair there.
"That is, if looking as bored as though you were locked in a pantry for something you consider extremely stupid...really means anything," he continues, the tone as un-presumptuous as they get. The pause in the middle of the phrase is exquisite, as if he's cultivating the last bit of thought, though it's mostly his inward breath to stave off a yawn.
His lashes are heavy, and he's tired, though his demeanor and his posture mask this impeccably.
"Either way, it was just an observation. You see," he smiles, showing a thin crescent of very white teeth, "I'm very bad at small talk this late at night."
---
In contrast, June seems more full of energy than any boy should at this hour, as if the darkness and time enliven him, added to the energy he gains from the coffee itself, not watered down or clotted with sugar and cream. "I see that," he answers amicably, entertained by that admittance, as if it's some tiny victory he's been handed, even though he knows it's anything but.
"It means something, doesn't it? Otherwise, you wouldn't have sat down to join me in my misery." June sets down his unfinished coffee, leaning into the table as best he can with his forearm braced over the surface and wrist locked at his side, looming a little bit closer.
The shift brings his eyes into greater focus under the light, hair loose over his shoulders and tickling his chin. It's very thin, but sleek, like something to wind your fingers in and braid.
June won't admit to himself, at least yet, that something about the way this man speaks is bothering him. It's not significant enough to make a deal out of, for now. "If I can make another observation. Do you like having these chats with every reckless guy brought in?"
---
His lips quirk into something more like amusement than polite friendliness, but it doesn't last for long, dying back into the background of a practiced human expression. It's extremely convincing; he's only ever met about two people that have been able to tell it from a genuine one.
Luc gently rubs at his own lips with the fingertips of his free hand for one moment, opening his eyes a little more once June leans forward, though he doesn't move back. He doesn't even acquire the slightest tension, and it's interesting how the closer the man moves, it almost seems to dictate just how open Luc's eyes become.
The smile lingers. That's incorrect of him; smiles don't usually correspond with widened eyes, and he's aware of a soft, metallic tsk tsk and a skittering, condescending giggle in the coldest back corners of his mind. His lashes drop back down, rendering the expression as disarmingly charming as it was before he'd phased into that slightly disturbing rendition.
"I suppose it does mean something." As if he's giving another victory over, the but the next part of his phrase takes it away just as smoothly, as if it had never been there. "...whatever the degree or extent." What he means is, however insignificantly, pathetically tiny it may be, because I might just be as bored as you. Luc is curious as to whether June will catch on and form a retort, or continue to pace at the end of his line.
So to speak.
When the question is asked, he answers it with the same closed-off way he'd replied to the very first question June had voice to him upon entering the room.
"No." A somewhat stretched smile, eyebrows lifted.
---
June's gaze doesn't waver, as resilient and scalding as steel laid out in the sun for hours, and he lays his hand on the table like he's making it his own. Fingers spread over the surface, stretched apart so the gaps between are wide, fingertips just barely digging down into its glossy finish.
He lingers like that, arched forward, held back only by the cuff on his left wrist. The boy seems to favor it when he can stretch the link to its limit, metal clattering, cutting into the tan skin of his arm. It's too dull to pull blood and he seems to know that, fisting the chain in his hand, exacting control over its blunted strength. Maybe he could snap it off, if he wanted to badly enough.
Voice mild, almost polite: "That doesn't matter. The extent of your hospitality aside, I wonder if I'm humoring you."
With the corners of his lips creased in a none too pleasant sneer, for a moment June looks like he might laugh. It would come out of him as bitter as coffee without sugar, a husky sound, hollow enough to make someone else immediately on edge, expecting violence. June is a turbulent, unpredictable creature; he fills rooms with charred blackness and humid rot.
"No? Then I guess there isn't any reason you should stay," June picks at darkly, drawing his hand from the table and abandoning the mug of coffee right where he left it.
---
Luc watches the boy's posture and his tendency to linger just at the limit of what binds him, though he's unsurprised by the idea that June may just enjoy being in a constant state of snapping whatever chains or whathaveyou are holding him back. He also has the distinct impression that the boy is entirely unused to being bound in the first place and dislikes the idea of it thoroughly, so his next move is entirely determined by that observation.
He allows June to say what he has to say, breathing slowly in through his nose as if he can just smell the carbon sting of burning that emanates form the person in front of him and finds it slightly offensive--or maybe even repulsive, but it doesn't show very much.
Luc then stands after collecting his own mug, dutifully unfurling to his full height before he advances, languidly picking up June's abandoned coffee and looking into it as if a few roaches might've crawled out of that filthy mouth. Then Luc glances at June's face, his mouth splitting and pushing his eyes to narrow, with an incredibly disturbing amount of warmth, into an incredibly friendly smile.
"I'm relieved you figured that out before I had to say anything about finishing up my work; it's always such a gauche act to cut a conversation short when it's only just begun."
And with that, he's turning off the light, closing the door behind himself with a soft click and without so much as a parting word.
---
---
He's brought in the following Thursday night, this time flanked by four men: two seizing June by the his upper arms in order to keep him frim lashing out with his fists, the other two maintaining a wide protective barrier around him to prevent the involvement of a bystander.
It's close to two in the morning; June is bleeding from a cut on his brow, a neat slice that's beaded blood in single smeared streaks down the curve of his face. The sweep of his dark hair covers most of the damage, fine strands sticking with sweat and diluted blood, messy around the black inferno of his glare.
June isn't coherent enough to make out much among the cruel, caustic, careless remarks he's practically spitting from the mouth like flames, though he's led along the same corridor as last time, forcefully jerked through the office doorway and locked to the same office chair as before. His expression is screwed up into an empty chasm of poisonous contempt, and he kicks the table when the men leave him there.
Light clicked off on the way out, he sits, stewing in the room's darkness.
---
On this particular night, Luc is simply staying late after having completed several tasks in the same afternoon in order to organize his desk. It's something he may not have time to do in the following days, which are bound to be busy, and he takes advantage of the fact that he's in the mood to clean things up and make sense of them before the long stretch of work begins.
He proceeds down the corridor in much the same way as before, minus the clip-board this time, and very slightly dressed down (only to a miniscule degree that could be considered more as just a a variation than a step down) in leather boots, extremely dark washed denim pants that button over to the side like riding breeches from an entirely different era, and a black office shirt with an open dark grey vest. The man's sleeves are rolled up, and he has nothing on his wrists or fingers because of the time he's spent in the lab, and as he pulls the chemical guard glasses from his face, he unlocks the door and reaches to turn on the light.
This time he knows full well who will be there, locked to the same seat, and is much more mentally prepared. "Hello," he states, much in the same fashion as all the other times he walks into the small room. He heads for a different cabinet, fishing around in it until he comes out with a box of staples, looking entirely pleased with having found his prey so easily.
---
In response, June says nothing. He has his feet on the table, fine dress shoes propped with his ankles crossed, both arms laid wide over the arms of the chair like he's too comfortable to change his posture at the other man's arrival. There's a neatness to what he wears that's entirely different than Luc's, as if the rich clothes were forced onto the broad lines of his body: pleated black slacks, stark white office shirt rolled casually up to the elbows, deep silk of a purple tie at his throat, jerked undone as though someone has grabbed it within the last hour. If he had a suit jacket to go over everything, it's no longer in his possession now.
He exhales in the dark, dispelling some of the tension that is visibly building itself into the structure of his bones. It's enough to give June back his ability to reply, but not much past that. "Fine night, isn't it." June is biting through his words, shredding them apart with his teeth. "I wasn't expecting you again."
Then, almost as a bitter afterthought, the boy's head tilted at an angle to add to his aggressive body language, "You never told me your name."
---
He arches one fine brow as he closes the drawer to the cabinet, staples in hand. When June makes the remark about expecting him, he gives over a slightly empathetic smile, which is insulting in and of itself.
"I'm afraid I can't say the same for you."
The man leans back very slightly against the wall, crossing his arms and observing. Yet again. One index finger gently, slowly taps on the opposite arm once, twice, before he becomes completely still.
"I didn't feel it was necessary, but my name is Luc." A flick of the eyes over the undone tie. "And you, if I'm not mistaken, are June of the Mallory family."
---
Nothing flickers in the boy's expression. He's used to having his name told back to him before he ever gives it, before he ever allows it given, and in this situation it isn't very different.
June stirs in his chair, fingertips digging into the arms of it, finding a stronger grip. "Luc, then." He chews it the same way he's chewed through everything he's said so far, tasting it on his gums and the roof of his mouth, feeling its shape. His eyes are as black as obsidian.
"Have you come to prod at the poor, chained-up delinquent again? Why don't you come a little closer?"
He lowers his feet from the desk, leans in the chair to prop his elbow on one knee, laying his free arm across.
---
"I don't recall prodding at you, but if you must know.."
He slants a look that might have been miscalculated, though it looks very deliberately coy on the outside. Then he shakes the box of staples gently.
"I think I won't, but thank you for the invitation."
Then he's on the move again, striding to the door as if he's going to leave.
---
June takes in a slow, heavy breath, holding it in his lungs before he lets it back out.
The boy is almost completely silent before he makes a move, almost completely calm when he finally shifts in the chair to seize the paperweight off the desk and throw it at the wall beside the door, aiming close to the man's head but some distance off.
There's undeniable strength behind the thrust of his arm, broadcasting itself to a frightening degree as the paperweight goes flying, suspended in air. June's eyes are narrowed into furious black slits.
---
Luc doesn't jerk away, but he does draw to a complete halt, as if the sound had frozen him over. Then, he turns his head, the hair over half of his face shielding his eye and casting most of it into shadow as he leans down to pick up the paperweight.
He wraps his fingers around the entirety of it before he stands, also slowly, moving into the boy's personal space. Luc pushes this boundary much further than necessary, moving into the space between June's knees before he leans down, close enough to see just how much red is lurking in the sepia tint of his eyes. They catch the light for just a moment at this angle before his hand is closing around June's throat, thumb digging mercilessly into the ridge of windpipe as he lifts the paperweight and digs a corner of it into the space between the boy's eyebrows.
Luc's voice takes on a very removed, thoughtful, and overall sub-zero quality as he speaks.
"You know, we are the only people in this building right now; I know how this place works like the back of my hand. And if the Mallory son, who has given the local police department more trouble than he could possibly be worth, somehow winds up with a split cheek the morning after his third incarceration in two weeks?" The thing digs in a little harder.
"Well.." He chuckles the word, softly, suddenly lifting the item high above the air behind him. "..I'm just so very certain that people would be clamoring to take credit for that little blow, and they haven't checked on you in hours." The man's hand is closing tighter and tighter on the boy's throat, his mouth curving into a very sharp-toothed smile.
"But unfortunately, June.." He sighs, and lowers the paperweight before he settles for gripping June's hair and wrenching the boy's head back. "..I'm afraid you just aren't worth the effort."
With that, he swiftly steps back out of the boy's space and reach. He tosses the paperweight up in the air and catches it, once.
---
June grits his teeth together at the press of the paperweight on his brow, but he doesn't flinch back at their proximity. There's actually a measure of detachment in the boy's expression, as if he's watching this through the eyes of a third party and not his own.
Despite the tension that tightens June's muscles, he doesn't feel..exactly threatened. It's nothing like that. There's the temptation of a fight, burning hot in his blood and boiling to the surface of his skin with every breath he steals from the air between them. There's the provocation of someone who is good at this, someone who he knows would not hesitate to strike him hard enough to crack a bone in his body.
And something about that enlivens June.
"I don't think a split cheek is anything I should worry about," he barks back, erupting into a cruel kind of laughter that tastes foul and is difficult to listen to without the instinct to step away from it. He says it in a way that bares just how reckless this boy is, just how unhinged and impossible to shatter--You can't fucking hurt me, asshole.
"In any case, Luc. I won't try and change your mind. But, you know where to find me, don't you." It isn't a question; June is grinning wide, like a dog showing its teeth.
---
Luc gives a soft, humoring exhale of air, shaking his head and looking at the boy the way he would a rabid dog.
"Please try to enjoy yourself in here. I think Officer Taylor would be terribly disappointed if you were in such a foul mood when he comes to pick you up in the morning."
With that, he hurls the paperweight, shattering the glass of the door window with the projectile. Then he paces over to the mess, hands on his waist, glancing down at the pieces of glass on the floor outside of the door. Luc looks to the table, to the boy, and then gives that same incredibly wide smile as he shakes his head, tsk-tsking softly before he closes the door after turning off the light.
"Goodnight, June."