[Danny Jones] 123 not me!
[Rafael Durante] ((123 not it!))
[Rafael Durante] ((FUCK!))
[Danny Jones] ((HAHAHHAH!))
[Rafael Durante] “No way, mang. Jessica Biel is a fucking dog.”
“Rafi, you’re insane.”
“That puta got a fuckin’ shelf life. Scarlet? Ella será smoking in her fucking 60s, man, Jessica ain’t gonna last five years, puedes escribirlo.“
It’s far too late at night for these two to be out walking around, far too late–Mama Isabel had put Carolina to bed hours ago, had gone to bed hours ago herself, but the two Durante Mendoza brothers are still conscious, still looking to burn off some energy in ways that don’t involve waking the two lovely ladies sleeping in the bedrooms upstairs. (They had already been hollered at once tonight, once when Rafi had cracked Santiago’s skull against the refrigerator during an unfair wrestling match, and once had been enough.)
At any rate, it’s far too late for them to be out period, let alone for Rafael to be talking as loud as he is. Santiago is weathering it in relative silence, his baseball cap pulled down far as if to hide his eyes from anyone who might be walking by, as if to hide the fact that he is, indeed, related to this wound up little firecracker next to him.
“Rafi, lower your voice.”
“Estaré reservado cuando admites que tengo razón. Jessica Biel is hotter then Scarlet Johansson my balls.”
[Danny Jones] It’s too late for them to be out, but just the same as always for a certain lil gnawer that could (Could what? why ain’tcha ask her, hm? She’ll tell ya. She’ll probably lie, too, but who’s countin..) – and it’s a grin that forms as the familiar voices pass by her alleyway. Rafi is loud, and Santi is not, and the call that comes from inside her box inside the alley is bemused.
“English, Rafi!”
She’s heard it enough times, after all, and she doesn’t even try to stop the giggling laughter that follows it. She crawls out of a box buried in the back of other boxes and stretches, her spine cracking from bottom to top, accompanied with a groan. Oy.
Then with a grin she grabs her pack and slings it over a shoulder, and moves to the mouth of the alley and beyond to catch the boys. “What, ya ain’t even gonna say hi or nuthin? An’ Do we really need to know that they’s hotter then ya balls?! I mean god, Rafi…”
[Rafael Durante] The appearance of the tiny Gnawer halts the boys’ steps, with varying changes in temperament: Santiago’s face lights up, a smile appearing on lips that flatten to keep his teeth from showing, while Rafi simply stares at her, that stare that indicates he’s forcing himself to stop and translate before flying off the handle.
When he speaks his voice is pitched into an amorphous North American accent, one that sounds so foreign coming out of his mouth. It’s jarring when one is used to hearing his normal tongue dripping with the South, both of the United States and of the border, and it brings the question: if he can do it, why doesn’t he always?
“‘English, Rafi. English, Rafi. English, Rafi.'”
Santiago has to clench his jaws together to keep himself from laughing. Rafael seems to have cooled off with that outburst, and simply closes his eyes and shakes his head a few times, drawing a loud inward breath before plastering a cheerful enough smile on his face and carrying on in the American accent, much to the amusement of his brother. It becomes more of a stereotypical gay male’s speech than anything else, which may or may not be intentional. He even flaps his arms around a few times for good measure.
“Danny, oh my gawd, hello, how are you, I haven’t seen you in age-es!”
At which point the sounds of helpless laughter begins to bubble out of Santiago’s chest.
[Danny Jones] She looks up at Santi and grins – a little shyly and shiney eyed and happy like, as she leans up and brushes a kiss along his jaw and a murmured “Heya hotstuff.” before she turns and studies Rafi, and folds her arms across her chest and watches his approximation of English manhood and greetings, and she lets out a soft.. “Hmph.”
She looks up at Santi, then back to his brother, and then instantly falls into Southern Belle mode and drops a curtsy with a flourish and bats her lashes at the Durante Brothers. “Why I de-clair-ah! If ya ain’t as cute as a button, all flappin’ ya’lls arms and saying hello like that. I’m charmed, absolutely CHAH-armed, sir!”
And then she’s dissolving into laughter as she grabs Rafi in a quick one armed hug. “Ya only gotta use English till I can assimilate enough Spanish to know what the hell ya callin my ass behind my back!”
[Rafael Durante] And likewise Santiago looks back, holding her gaze for as long as she’ll offer it, bending down so she can plant a cheek on his face. If she thinks it’s going to escape Rafael’s notice, if either of them think that, they’re both wrong. He simply ignores it for the sake of not breaking character, and by the time Danny has finished her parry, he’s back to his normal method of speaking, that blend of Mexican and Oklahoman that has had absolutely no effort taken to standardize it.
“It’s only sayin’ it to your face if you can’t hear me.”
While their conversation continues, Santiago reaches out and wraps an arm around the girl’s shoulders, resting his hip against her waist. The older Durante brother sees this, blinks, then forces a smile onto his face.
“Like, watch, this ain’t to your face: ¿Es aceptable para abrazarla en la calle pinche ahora, es? ¿Por qué no la besas, eh? ¡Vaya! Me cerraré los ojos malditos, pendejo. Permito que le digas qué esoy diciendo, también. Puede le decir cuáles un buen hermano soy. Pocho pinche, no se ve este en Mexico, nadie abraza la novia en la calle. Por la amor de Dios…“
This is all said very rapidly, so rapidly that even Santiago has trouble following along, and at the end Rafael throws up his hands and reaches into the pocket of his sweatshirt for his cigarettes.
“He says he thinks it’s cute that I’m hugging you.”
“Maricón,” Rafi says around his cigarette.
[Rafael Durante] ((Uhhh… it’s only saying it “behind your back,” not “to your face”… jesus christ what am i on…))
[Danny Jones] Santi reaches out and pulls her close and her smile softens just that much more that says how much she likes the fact that he did so, as her arm slides around his waist and her head finds his shoulder with a content lil grin.
And she doesn’t even pretend she can follow what he said and as Santi translates she blinks, and then laughs “all THAT to say we’re cute? Somehow, I think ya ain’t translating quite EVERYthing… but I’m kinda scared to find out what the rest might be…”
Of course, with her wild hair and her hot pink shirt with my lil pony’s on it, and her hello kitty phone – it might be missed that she still has that vending machine ring threaded on leather and worn around her neck. Where it has been since the night of the now infamous prank. Fingers slide in idle caress against Santi’s hip as she reaches out to nudge Rafi with an elbow. “Though! I caught the last sentence- for the love of god!”
That grin is triumphant! Seems she’s picking up at least a little somewhere…
((*LMAO* i knew whatcha meant. *g*))
[Rafael Durante] That triumph spreads from the light of her grin to the tiny Mexican, who throws out his arms and crows, “He-ey, all right!” before pulling a drag off of his cheap cigarette and pocketing the equally cheap Bic.
“You hear that, pocho, she can be taught! What else’ll you teaching her?”
“Nothing I’m going to repeat to you.”
“Qué un bruto eres tu…“
Rafi visibly staunches the flow of any more non-English words, the perpetual request beset by his brother, his daughter, and now his tribemate echoing in his head. There is an eyeball roll, a barely audible growl, and then he turns back to Danny. Even if he does have to ignore her hand on his brother’s hip.
(English, Rafi…)
“So things are good? No more drama with the Captain Morgan?”
[Rafael Durante] ((Err, put an accent over the u in tú…))
[Danny Jones] She laughs and shrugs her shoulders, lightly as she reaches up with free hand to brush through her hair, pulling out the tangles and spiking it back up all at once. She’s always had an expressive face – too much so, some would say. She smiles easily, and any emotion can be seen flitting through her eyes. She tucks her free hand into her pocket (because she’s so not gonna let go of Santi until she’s gotta.) and grins a little – something’s still there, a sadness, but it’s gone a long way towards resolving itself to regret to be chalked up to experience – even if it’ll never be forgotten.
“No more problems with th’Capt’n. Ain’t seen him since Beltaine, at all. The look on his face was fuckin priceless though, weren’t it?” There’s that happy lil grin again. “Chris’s been teaching me to cuss in Spanish, ya know…”
There’s a threat for’im, huh? Then she wrinkles her nose a little. “I’m packless again though.” So much for no drama – even if it’s not with the Capt’n…
[Rafael Durante] At mention of the look on Drake’s face–or, rather, the Drakes’, there had been a bilateral reaction to her dropping the jesting bomb on their heads–Santiago chuckles low in his chest, the vibrations felt throughout Danny’s body. His free hand reaches up to readjust the setting of his hat on his skull. Meanwhile, Rafi smokes his cigarette and frowns as the confession comes, the breaking of news.
He sniffs as if he has a cold, then turns his head to hawk a loogie into the gutter, just barely missing the bumper of a parked Buick. That might have somehow made the thing just a touch cleaner, if it had connected.
“Why?” he asks when his head had turned back to the pair. More specifically, to the Ragabash. There is nothing but supportive curiosity on his face, that one that changes expressions at break-neck speeds, at the mercy of his moods.
[Danny Jones] She looks up at Santi as he laughs, her grin for a moment completely shameless, before Rafi’s countenance changes, though thankfully it’s with supportive curiosity rather then condemnation. She shifts her weight slightly and scuffs her boot against the filthy concrete.
“Well, me an Loki – he formed up with us all so as to get my ass pulled out the fire at the Docks, n shit, right? and it was a temporary thing, though coulda been made permanent. Bai, he calles a meeting and kinda forces the issue of make a decision if we’re stickin together like right this second, and well – ever since that bullshit fight where I disappeared and ain’t no one but the Fenrir think to fuckin look for my ass an ya found me all fucked up in the head n shit right? Well, I ain’t never wanted to pack with Bai to begin with, an’ the others, they weren’t never around and ain’t never been a team, ya dig? It was always every man for hisself and I just ain’t fit. So – when asked what I wanted, I said I was out, an’ walked.”
A little shrug there, though she sighs too. “Ain’t found a pack I fit in with yet. It’s kinda disheartenin.”
[Rafael Durante] ((PAUSAGE FEST WOOOO))