raisetheearth | We never said it was a GOOD plan

Who: Misa, Cesar, Nux, and Ryuzaki
Where: Devil's Den nightclub in Gateway City
What: Ryuzaki has told Cesar some galling lies, Cesar has made some poor life choices, and now Misa is making the poor life choice to go confront the two of them in a seedy nightclub. And she's pulling Nux into it.
When: August 26, night
Warnings: Violence, possibly allusions to sex and drugs
Status: Closed

Misa does not want to be here. Everything about her expression says that it has been a long, long day, and a depraved looking night club is the last place on earth she wants to be right now. But she likes to think of herself as a good girlfriend, and Lazarus was obviously distraught about what sorts of trouble Cesar might be getting himself into. Misa doesn't like that concern for his ex. Not one bit. But she tries to be a good girlfriend, and there is no way she would let Lazarus do this himself even if he wasn't in such a pitiful state. So here she is making her way into a gross bar full of gross people, with an excited Nux at her heels. He isn't the best bodyguard a girl could hope for, but he is literally the only person with a decent amount of body-mass she knows who could be summoned on short notice. Now she misses Tony.

Beyond being a good girlfriend, Misa very much wants to punch Ryuzaki in the face at least once. Pregnant. He spread the rumor that she was pregnant. Out of wedlock, here, with all the weirdness happening— just thinking about it has her furious all over again, at Ryuzaki for telling the lie and at Cesar for believing it. Not that it's any of his business.

"Stay close," Misa says, raising her voice to be heard over the music. It will no doubt be much worse inside. She hooks her arm around Nux's to ensure they won't get separated, takes a deep breath of marginally clean air, and plunges in.

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Cesar doesn't look well. He looks like he's about to be sick, and that he's only holding back by the fraying threads of his concentration. Too much alcohol on an empty stomach, too much excitement, too many shocks--even an emotionally dubious one is the straw that breaks the camel's back.

He gives Nux a nauseous stare.

It's pretty much all the warning he'll get before Cesar leans to the side and loses all the alcohol he'd just consumed and then some. He sinks to his knees in the process, unable to support himself otherwise.

Dignity? Thy name is not Cesar Sanches-Ortiz.

Ryuzaki admittedly didn't think that Nux had it in him to hit so passionately and so hard. Facedown on the filthy floor, surrounded by cigarette butts and sticky spots, his vision spins and blurs for a different reason than the alcohol; it's the reeling pain that comes from getting hit that hard.

He hears the sound of Cesar vomiting, rolling aside to avoid getting splattered. Hopefully, that'll distract Misa and Nux long enough to let him roll away under the curtain and lose himself in the dark throngs of moshing revelers.

"It's not confusing!" Misa insists. "We were never having a baby! We're not even married, the copy made it up!"

She jumps when Cesar starts retching, wrinkling her nose and moving far out of the splash radius. Sufficiently distracting, to say the least. "Ewwww..."

Nux blinks, shaking his hairless head, frowning and sighing.

"Sorry about the baby," he finally mumbles. His attention is grabbed by the latest unpleasant development, but instead of recoiling from it like Misa, he goes right toward it.

He grew up on a dairy farm. He was in the Mafia, whose members drank to excess and murdered often. He's well-used to dealing with messes, and is actually tremendously gifted at seeing the person before the mess.

"Cesar!" he says more loudly, patting him on the back and crouching over him. "Get it out, it's OK. You're OK now. We're going to take you back to Shepherd's Haven, and give you a bed and some water. R-right, Misa?"

He's the center of attention, and all Nux's reassurances do is crowd him. He wants space. He wants to collect the tattered remains of his pride and retreat to never be seen by these two again. He would do it if he could manage it right now. Distantly he notes that Ryuzaki has disappeared.

He's too nauseous to feel anything about it. Cesar wipes the back of his mouth, shaking his head at a question that hadn't been asked. No, he's not going back to Shepherd's Haven with them.

Spreading his hands to usher the kid far enough away that he can stand unassisted, Cesar gets to his feet again, much like a colt on unsteady legs. Nux is given the wary sort of vigilance that comes from getting the impression that the kid would probably stick his fingers in a sick horse's mouth, if he thought the horse would choke on its sick otherwise.

Misa is ignored--very, very deliberately. He won't look at her. He can't lift his gaze past her feet.

Who would have thought Nux would have those kind of nurturing skills? It's certainly a plus in Misa's book, giving her ample excuse not to go anywhere near Cesar. They can just pretend it's solely because of the vomit. In fact, she could just leave all of this in Nux's capable hands- except then he says that, and Misa balks.

"There's no reason to drag him all the way back there!" she protests, taking an additional step back as Cesar unsteadily gets to his feet. "He's safe now, he can make it home."

Nux, despite the violent way he grew acquainted with the Numbered originally, is quite a nurturing and caring person. When someone is suffering he is right there, and if he doesn't have the ability to ease their pain, he'll at least beg them plaintively not to hurt so much.

"Well what are we gonna do Misa, huh?" He asks exasperatedly. "We can't just leave him here! Someone might take advantage of him! Like... like Lazarus' doppelgänger almost did! Lazarus wouldn't want us to just leave him."

Cesar shakes his head and holds a quelling hand up as though to say, 'I have everything under control now.' The effect is somewhat ruined by the stench of vomit and spilled alcohol that hangs around him like a cloud, as well as the fact that he's so obviously wasted.

Both of them get one last look, as though to punctuate the gesture, before he lets his hand drop, turning to the spot where the curtain meets the wall. He walks the distance. The world tries to inch out from under him with every step, and he has to take it carefully, with no small amount of swaying.

Misa would very much like to say that they can just leave him here, it's his own stupid mess he got himself into! The fact that Lazarus might want them to bring Cesar home is all the more reason not to, in fact. But with the way he sways and lurches forward, Misa is forced to admit that perhaps leaving him here would be a little bit cruel. They are not bringing him home, but maybe they should at least see him out.

"You grab him then," Misa shoots back, just as exasperated. "We are NOT taking him home with us, let's just get him out of here."

Nux all but ignores Cesar's pitiful insistence that he's all right and can handle this on his own; clearly it is not the case, and he writes it off quickly and easily rather than even consider that it might be true.

"H-hey! Come back!" he says, going after Cesar and catching him by the shoulder. "Wait, don't go. Hold on a second."

He turns back to Misa. "Grabbed him. But uh... what do you mean we can't take him home with us? Where are we gonna take him instead?"

We never said it was a GOOD plan

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