First class pain in the ass

[Julio de la Rosa]

He really hated this. He hated that Angel left. For a long moment, he waited by the door, half waiting for Angel to change his mind and come back. Did he even call that cab? Was he waiting outside for it? Maybe he should go and wait with him. Or was that too close to these weird new boundaries? There was no way of knowing without doing. So he went to the door and he opened it--only to find himself standing face to face with Sean.

Julio blinked in surprise. And then he looked past Sean. No sign of Angel. Maybe he called the cab when he was in the bathroom. But he felt like he was missing something important. Something he should have known but was escaping him for whatever reason.

Stepping back to give Sean room to enter his apartment, he snuck another look out and down the street and up it, too, but nothing. He would have to text-- His eyes widened. Angel didn't have a phone. He used Julio's phone to get here! Moving past Sean, he looked around wildly but he couldn't shout. He turned back to Sean and signed, "Shout Angel!" three times in succession, rattled.

[Sean Yun]

Sean had Julio's bag with his costumes in one hand and in the other a six-pack of beer. He left the party early once he saw that the other guys had it under control, and... he was sorta worried about Julio after he heard what happened out on the balcony. At the time Sean was dancing but later, as he mingled, he heard bits and pieces.

Logan had a private show, so he had to stay but Sean left as soon as he could to check up on his buddy. When the door opened, he expected Julio. He didn't expect Julio to look all down, like somebody had just told him Christmas was cancelled. "Hey bro!" Sean said brightly, stepping in and dropping the bag at the door. "Got your kit. And—this! Thought—"

Annnnd Julio was pushing past him, wild-eyed and frantic. "What?" Sean looked around with him but there was nobody around. "Angel?" Okay... "ANGEL! You religious all of a sudden? What's this about man?"

[Julio de la Rosa]

Nothing. Julio listened keenly but there was no response to Sean's shouting. Inside, his heart kept plummeting. It was probably fine. But it probably wasn't. Although Angel left on a nice note--with an embrace--Julio couldn't help thinking that nothing was fine. And Angel was alone, with all these thoughts and bad feelings...

With a weary exhalation, Julio moved back into the apartment with that heavy feeling still weighing on him.

"My friend was here and he said he called a cab but he didn't have a phone," he signed, frowning. "Last time he was here, he was beaten."

[Sean Yun]

"Blue haired dude? I thought I saw somebody coming out of your apartment just now." Sean reached into his back pocket for his car keys. Muscle car, of course. For a muscley kinda guy--definitely not compensating for anything though!

"C'mon. He couldn't have gone far right?" Obviously Julio was worried and on edge. A new for him, actually, since normally he wasn't this... agitated? Sean didn't know the whole story but if Julio was this unsettled then the guy must've meant something to him.

They'd get around faster on wheels than on foot and the guy didn't look like he'd be able to run far--or fast. "That the guy you left the party with?" he asked with a knowing little half-grin as he set off for the car.

[Julio de la Rosa]

Oh! It wasn't too late? Julio nodded--yes, the blue haired... dude. That was Angel. It couldn't be anybody else, coming from his place. And Sean saw him coming up so he couldn't have gone far. (Not to mention he hadn't left that long ago. Surely they could catch up to him!)

He nodded again as he grabbed his own keys and his phone from the counter, slipped a pair of shoes on and followed Sean hurriedly to his car. Julio didn't know how much Sean knew, if he'd heard about the mishap at the party. And it didn't seem right to divulge any of Angel's personal information so he couldn't express why he was so worried. So he doubled down on the thugs.

"There's a group of guys around here that beat on anybody they think is queer. If they see him..."

[Sean Yun]

"Shit. What? Those assholes? They keep hanging around the club, don't they?" Sean slid into the driver's seat and started up the car, which purred to life like a contented tiger. "The guys were saying some poor kid got kicked around by them a couple weeks ago but... I didn't know it was your friend."

In a small town it was easy to guess who the culprits were though. Sean knew they were a bunch of young ranch hands who thought they were 'the shit,' as they said. But he didn't know them personally. People didn't look at him and think: easy target so he was never jumped.

Or he hadn't been jumped yet.

"I'll drive slow, keep your eyes out for him. Can't really miss that blue hair huh?" Sean glanced over as the car rolled down the street. "He seemed kinda. Off. No offense. But at the party they were saying he tried to jump off the balcony... How'd you get tangled up with a kid like that?"

[Julio de la Rosa]

Again, Julio nodded. Those were the ones. They mostly left him alone and he doubted Sean or Logan or the others had issues, either. Why they hung around a place that was made up of mostly women when they wanted to beat on queer folk, he didn't know. Maybe it was a ploy to prey on the women, too. Just in a different way. The thought of it utterly disgusted Julio.

Sean didn't even have to tell Julio to look because he was looking everywhere, half afraid he was going to find Angel beaten in an alley again. And again, Julio didn't want to share his or Angel's secrets with Sean. They were friends, but they weren't that close. Not close enough for Julio to have told him anything about his past or his problems. Maybe he was like Angel. Pushing away people who only meant well.

He shrugged. The how of it didn't really matter, did it? The two of them weren't so different. Sean thought Angel was off because he met him in a sad state. If he met Julio in his worst moments, he would say the same about him.

"He's not much of a partier."

[Sean Yun]

The strong silent type, that was what most people thought of Julio. It wasn't that he couldn't express himself though—he didn't seem to want to say much. Some might have called him aloof or distant but Sean sorta suspected that he had trust issues. Maybe he'd been burned in the past; Sean knew better than to pry though. He found that when people wanted to talk, they didn't need to be encouraged.

"Huh. So he was gonna take the express route?" I.e. swan dive off the balcony? That didn't seem like a normal reaction to not liking parties. Sean glanced at Julio, noting that he was only answering one out of every three or four questions. Most would have launched into an explanation by now—not so Mister Strong and Silent.

"Is Angel his real name?"

[Julio de la Rosa]

No answer to that one. It wasn't his story to tell. He hadn't even told Sean his own story. If pressed as to why, he didn't really know what made the difference. Sean had been in his life longer than Angel had been. For all he knew, Angel was... he didn't even know. Honestly, he couldn't lump Angel into something negative like a gang or organized crime. He was rich enough to be connected to shit like that but even if he was, Angel himself was, well, an angel.

Glancing over at Sean, he realized that when he'd signed Angel's name, he'd used the term angel. It was a common name where he came from but Sean might not know that. Maybe he just thought Julio was crazy in love. He swallowed hard. Maybe he was.

No, no. It was nothing like that. Quickly, he turned his attention outside, as if staring hard enough in any spot would make Angel appear. A scan of the area still hadn't turned him up yet, though. Did he not go this way? But the motel was this way. So was the bus stop, they'd already passed the bus stop, which was within quick walking distance of Julio's apartment building.

"Yes," he finally signed. His name really was Angel.

[Sean Yun]

"Really?" Angel? The kid had that skittish air about him. Even from a cursory glance Sean had noticed it. He knew people like that, ones who went through life like a shadow. They didn't want to be seen or heard but they all had a story, something that made them that way. It wasn't normal, he didn't think, to be that way; nobody was born looking to dive off a balcony at a party.

"He's cute." He paused. "No homo." Habit. Kind of a dumb joke between him and Logan and it slipped out. Sean grinned at Julio. "No but seriously, he seems like he's got a lot of baggage. Sure you want that in your life right now?"

If he considered himself Julio's friend—and he did—then he had to bring it up, right? Sean wasn't saying Angel was a bad person or anything, but that balcony stunt... It brought up so many red flags. And he felt like he needed to at least say something, before Julio got pulled down with someone he might not be able to save. Some people weren't looking for help, even if they needed it; Angel might even resent him in the end.

[Julio de la Rosa]

He looked over at Sean. Yes, really. What? Did he not believe him? Did he think it was some affectionate nickname? That would be like asking Sean to yell baby down the street. Of course it was his name.

Frowning, Julio crossed his arms. Again with this. Sean might be grinning and joking but seriously remark was jabbing him in an already sore spot. Why did everybody think he was so incapable of making decisions for himself about the people he wanted in his life? What about him made him seem incapable of handling 'baggage'?

"Stop the car," he signed. Now he really was getting angry.

[Sean Yun]

Even without the name—and it did sound like a cutesy nickname, Sean wouldn't lie—he could see how serious Julio was about Angel. In all the time that Sean had known him, he'd never seen Julio get this worked up. Well... maybe after that one private show. The one that caused Julio to stop doing private gigs altogether.

But that look on his face earlier when he frantically told Sean to yell Angel's name down the street... And this look now, stubborn and upset—and Sean wasn't even telling him not to be friends (or more) with the guy! It was that visceral response to someone saying something about his 'Angel' that kinda gave him away.

Sean blinked though, as he signed to stop the car. "Uhh. You gonna try to find him on foot? In the dark, at night? C'mon man, let me help. I'm your buddy right? I gotta look out for you. Let's go down some smaller streets, at least circle around. Then if you want to get out, I'll drop you off."

[Julio de la Rosa]

With his arms still crossed, he stared out of the car window, but he nodded. Fine. Let Sean help since he was offering but he needed to lay off the same shit that he was getting from Angel. Why did everybody else feel the need to interject their doubts about him anyway? What was it about Julio that apparently seemed so unreliable or fragile that he couldn't handle somebody with big problems?

Angel really couldn't have gone that far, but it felt like wherever he'd gone, he was now hiding. Did he realize Julio would remember the lack of a phone and grow concerned enough to go out looking for him? Did he purposely go in a direction that would make finding him all that harder? Or had he taken a wrong turn? Was he lost? Did somebody hurt him--again? Or did Angel do something... to himself?

He wasn't in a good place. Mentally. Emotionally. Julio could have kicked himself for not being more adamant about having him stay. Fuck.

[Sean Yun]

Yeeaahhh... yikes. Sean knew when to shut up—this right here was the time to shut up. He could see that the walls were up and Julio was being defensive, even if he didn't sign anything. The crossed arms? Totally defensive.

Well, he didn't have to explain himself or anything. Sean got it. Sometimes the heart overrode the head and there was nothing to be done about it. He was worried, though; this kid was kind of messing Julio up. Before this, Julio was doing okay. Stable job, his own place, he was paying off his debts all right. Relationships didn't seem to come easily to him but—did it ever for them? In their line of work?

Sean kept his eyes on the road, driving several times around the area. "Shit, where'd he go? I can't imagine he'd have gone far on foot." He cruised by the motel again, the nearest one to Julio's place. "You think maybe he got a cab and went back to Portland?" Taxis did drive around looking for customers too, maybe Angel lucked out and found one.

"I don't think we're gonna find him though. I mean we've been all over town, pretty much. What do you want to do now? Keep searching or go back to your place?"

[Julio de la Rosa]

It felt like hours and miles but it wasn't. Sean was right; they'd looked everywhere and more than once now. Wherever Angel got off to, he wasn't going to be found. His heart hurt as it slowly plummeted down, down, down. Feeling sick to his stomach, he finally shrugged. He had no idea what Angel had done. So this was it, then? He didn't know him.

"Home," he signed.

What else could he do? They weren't even accomplishing anything by doing this. And Angel left for a reason. He wasn't comfortable with Julio. Why did he do what he did, though? He was so hard to work with. One minute he wanted to be close, to be comforted. He took long drives to come home with him and then shortly afterward, left. Just left.

Maybe everybody was right. Maybe he wasn't equipped to handle him.