new ground

Who: Dodge and Nate
Where: The gym
When: afternoon

Dodge had spent most of what was left of his day alternating between pickpocketing strangers and thinking about Zach's suggestion. What rumors did he want spread about JD? What sort of pretend persona could he create? It was just like Maddy said only without the work, which in Dodge's book made it the better option.

He hadn't specifically intended to wander by the gym that Nate had told him about but his feet had taken him in that general direction and as far as he was concerned there wasn't any harm in at least walking by. As he passed he became curious, and eventually found himself a place, slightly out of the way from the entrance, watching the people come and go, studying who they were and trying to get a better feel for the place overall.

Nate had been at school all day, and he headed over to the gym straight after, his book bag still slung over one shoulder. It had been a long and boring day and he wasn't in the mood to head home and start on his homework straight off. he figured releasing some energy first would do him some good.

He caught side of JD loitering outside the place as he approached and he smiled, picking up the pace as he walked up to the guy. "So, you headed inside?" he asked, adopting an assuming tone, even though he knew that JD looked very much like he was intending to stay outside. That, though, wouldn't do.

Dodge had spotted Nate coming but he'd waited to see if the other boy would approach him first, not wanting to draw attention to himself. "I imagine if I was I'd be in there already," he mused, but it wasn't pointed, just a comment. "Are you?"

"Is that what you'd imagine?" Nate asked, raising an eyebrow. "Then we'd imagine different things - I'd imagine you'd be assessing your intentions. And I'd encourage you to decide that standing out here really isn't the way to go and you should come in with me. because yes, I'm going inside - that's what I'm here for. So come on," he said, gesturing that they should both head inside, holding the door open for the other boy.

There wasn't a single thing about what Nate said that put Dodge at ease. It was just short of a direct manipulation, twisting things around and putting Dodge in a spot where he could feel almost obligated to give in and follow Nate through the door. As a result he held back, face passive and innocent while he thought though the situation. After a moment he shrugged, as if it was nothing and stepped inside. That was sort of push from someone meant there was something interesting behind the door, which caught Dodge's attention. He was still in the business of trading secrets after all, Zach had confirmed that much this morning.

Nate let him pass and then followed him inside, allowing the door to close after them. "I was hoping I'd see you around here," he said, conversationally as they headed along a short corridor leading towards the main gym area. "Honestly - there's not enough guys around here my age, and I'm sick of always being the youngest about," he confessed, as though it did actually bug him. "Be good to have another person around, y'know? I mean - the older guys are fine and all for teaching you tricks, but for every one of those you get, you'll get a guy who's starting to go round the middle and who has a chip on his shoulder about it and a point to prove," he added, before looking over. "Not that - they always go easy on the new guys," he put in quickly, reassuringly.

Dodge tried to ignore the shiver of paranoia that went up his spine as the door closed behind him. There wasn't anything directly to be afraid of, but that didn't mean the anxious feeling went away no matter how many times he told himself it was fine. "There's no need to go easy on anyone," Dodge pointed out even if he'd spent most of his time standing behind Roach and letting Roach fight. "Can you keep up with them, the older guys?" He shot a sidelong glance at Nate. They were about the same height, but Nate was in shape and well fed, where Dodge wasn't. Where Nate was broad, Dodge was gangly. Nate looked like he could hold his own against most if Dodge had to guess.

Nate glanced back. "I wouldn't say that too loudly - some of them punch like a fucking freight train," he said, wryly. "I'd advise learning to duck - them again, you look pretty light on your feet, you're probably already pretty good at that," he admitted, taking in JD's build. Yeah, he was sure this guy would be a quick one, wiry as he was. that was often as good, if not better, than standard muscle. "But yeah, I can usually keep up."

"I learned to duck a long time ago," Dodge said with a bit of a wry smile. "So are you going to give me the spiel and tour? I'm curious, why does a kid like you hang out a place like this with guys who punch like freight trains. Besides the danger of it all, what's the appeal?"

"I like to keep fit," Nate told him. "And my step-father has this whole 'real men' thing going. Like 'real men' know how to hold their own' and 'boxing is for real men' - pretty sure that he started on that because he figured I didn't qualify. So - here I am, and actually, it's a pretty good way to let off some steam." He mentioned nothing about it's real world applications. After all, Nate was being Nate Lyons here and now, not Nathaniel Konovich.

"Boxing is for real men?" Dodge asked with a bit of a look. "That sounds like a load of bullshit to me. I figure a man is what he makes of himself. If you do what you love for the right reasons then who cares what the rest of the world thinks." Which in Dodge's case had been his own little kingdom he'd given up. He didn't need to be whatever society expected of him, just what he expected of himself.

Nate laughed a little sceptically at that. "Whether you care what the world thinks or not, sometimes they give a damn, and then they'll set out to make you care. Sometimes just to prove that nobody's above it all. But you're right - a man is what he makes himself. My father would agree with that, though he'd then go on to say that I was 'making myself' a real man by taking up boxing. Which is either true, or bullshit - but then how much of this world just comes down to your point of view?" he asked, pausing to say that at the double doors leading into the main gym room.

"All of it does. There's no use in wasting time living up to someone else's expectations. You'll spend your whole life being weighed and measured and it's not worth it. You miss out on the good stuff." Dodge slowed with him, taking in the doorway. That inkling sense of dread came again. He was alone without his boys to back his every move, and he was putting a level of trust on someone who wasn't much more than a stranger. "And I figure if they try to bring you down, beat 'um back." The grin was a little more devilish than normal, trying to cover up Dodge's own nerves.

"Oh - you'll fit in just fine round here," Nate told him with a laugh as he pushed through the doors into the main room. The smell was the faintly pervasive odour of chalk, sawdust, sweat and men - of the latter of which there were a few examples scattered around the room either lifting weights or sparring in the ring that was set up on the far side of the area. Nate nodded to a few of them and got mostly grunts in return, and he started off towards the changing rooms. "Well, this is it in all it's glory," Nate said, ironically. It wasn't glamorous, but, at the end of the day, that was the point of the place.

Dodge slowed his pace, taking in his surroundings. It wasn't much, despite Nate's comment and it smelled worse than his apartment with upwards of twelve boys living in it had. "It's something," he said, doing his best not to make eye contact with the patrons, but at the same time sizing them up. Nate wasn't kidding. Some of them looked like the punched like freight trains.

"That's one way of looking at it. Not exactly the Ritz or anything, but it's not that bad," Nate said, easily. he hadn't wanted anything flashy and upmarket. Looking well groomed and wealthy had its place, but Nate wanted to be able to fit in in all walks of life, so actually getting to know all those walks was vital. Anyway, this was a great proving ground - for any number of people.

"How'd you find out about it anyway?" Dodge asked. He was a street kid and a thief and he had a good eye for people who had money. Nate's clothes were in good shape, not second hand, probably not even worn from last winter and of course he was well fed, well cleaned. The slightly dingy gym didn't seem like a place that advertised to guys like Nate.

"About this place?" Nate checked. "Word of mouth, really - friend of a friend and all that," he said, easily. "I was looking for somewhere that wasn't just for show, and this place got suggested," he explained.

"What kind of a friend of a friend do you have that suggests this sort of place?" Dodge asked with a raised eyebrow. He still felt like as much as Nate seemed to fit in here, something seemed off.

Nate glanced across at him. "Do I look like the kind of person who wouldn't have friends who would suggest this kind of a place?" he asked, easily, raising an eyebrow. "And, if so - that a judgement on me, or this place, or both?"

"Honestly? No." Dodge shrugged as if it wasn't a big deal. "And yes it's a judgement on both. Might not be the best way to live, but judgement is what it takes for a street kid to survive. You judge who has what you want or need, who's going to be missing what you take and who you need to learn to avoid. So maybe it's rude, but I'd like to live past eighteen."

Nate considered this, then nodded. "Don't know what you imagine - but there's no real upmarket gyms in this city. At least, not ones where you can get anything done, and aren't just some kind of a cover for 'massage services'. If you want to work out, then you go to what's on offer. Which is generally places like this, no matter what kind of a person you look like," he explained. "You make your judgments based on what you know of the world, of course. But when you don't have experience of all that he world has to offer, sometimes those judgments are off base." Nate didn't sound at all like the comment was meant as a dig, on the contrary it wasn't - it was simply a fact of life and something that Nate would be happy to help the other guy out with, given half the chance.

"I could use that same line on people who don't understand my portion of the world," Dodge pointed out, sure that he'd said something similar the first time he'd chatted with Nate. Things were different from either side of the coin, that much Dodge realized, but at the same time this place was a half a step above being a dive. Pretty boy still didn't seem to fit properly, but maybe he was right. Maybe it was just a matter of making do with what was available. Still, Nate's observation hadn't felt like an insult which had Dodge breathing just a touch easier. "So what goes down? You come in you beat up on one of these goons...?" The look he gave Nate was expectant and curious, willing to listen.

"Course you could," Nate agreed without missing a beat. "Which is why it''s pretty important to experience as much of the world as you can - no matter where you come from. After all, where you come from doesn't have to be where you end up, but if you don't know what's out there, how can you really know where you're going," he posed, lightly, as if this was a idea he really held, rather than a line he was putting out there. "As for what goes down here, I - like the rest of the guys here - come in and work out, and generally, yeah, we spar. Though it's not quite us beating up on each other. You want that, go find a street fight. Boxing's more about skill than just making the other guy bleed."

Dodge listened to Nate's words with the skepticism that could only be allotted to a boy who had very little. The idea of experiencing the world seemed like a waste. Was he supposed to experience every other city, wonder if life in the streets was the same everywhere. He guessed it probably was and there wasn't much use in experiencing anything else. "Where are you going?" he asked instead of commenting, wondering what doors had been opened for Nate in his world experience. "How's it more than that, than just seeing who bleeds less. I've snuck into matches before, looks like it's just about who bleeds less."

"Where am I going?" Nate asked him, cocking an eyebrow. "Wherever I decide to go. Still making up my mind on that one," he added, vaguely. He had ideas, but he wasn't sharing them with most people, not yet. Not until he really knew - and even then, he wouldn't tell anyone. If people knew your plans, they could know how to get in your way. "How about you - you have any intentions for going places?" he asked, pushing the question back his way, pursuing that angle as it was more interesting to him than the finer elements of boxing.

Dodge watched two guys set up in the ring, gearing up for a spar. "Anything in particular on the table?" he asked before answering the question himself. "No intentions no. Decided to change things up recently, but I haven't nailed down the specifics yet."

"So, you're kinda in limbo right now?" Nate asked, skipping over answering the question in a way that would suggest he'd just misunderstood it, rather than that he was avoiding. "So, where you coming from?" he asked, curiously.

"I suppose you could say that," Dodge said with a shrug. At the second question he had to bit his tongue to not answer with the truth. The Prince of Thieves was dead, which meant he didn't need to blab that he'd once been that guy. But the thought gave him his answer instead. "From the dead," he answered cryptically.

Nate turned to him fully and blinked. "From the dead?" he asked, his attention properly caught this time, not just playing games. "So - how does that one work then?" he asked, hoping that he would get a real answer to a real question. JD had suddenly become a whole lot more interesting to him, that was for sure.

Dodge had glanced back towards the fighters in the ring, but at Nate's question he turned back to Nate with a knowing grin. "It just does. Rising from the ashes and such," Dodge explained without explaining anything at all.

Nate raised an eyebrow. "Oh, come on - you don't just put something like that out there for a guy and not expect him to bite. Or, wait for him to bite and then pull the kind of bullshit that's just a few vague words and a knowing look. You either tell, or you should learn not to put it out there in the first place. If you want to keep your secrets: keep them secret," he advised.

Dodge shrugged, not really caring for Nate's advice. "I died. Now I'm back. So I don't have anything planned at all. That's all there is to it really." He looked honest as he said it, because it was honest. He was essentially telling the truth without telling the truth.

"How did you die?" Nate asked him, in no way willing to just leave things at that. No way in hell. That was far too interesting a statement.

Dodge thought about that for a moment, not answering right away then shook his head with another shrug. "To be honest? Not sure. I did deserve it though I think."

Nate frowned a little. "You don't know how you died?" he asked, thoroughly confused at this point. "Well, assuming I'm not talking to the living dead, you survived, so... Fake death? What was the reason behind it? Or wasn't it planned? What happened man?" he asked, pressing for information, really wanting to know at this point.

"That's the fun of it right? Not knowing," Dodge said with a bit of a smirk. "Bad luck happened. Crossed the wrong people and wound up dead. I told you it was different." He could tell Nate wanted answers, which had Dodge stringing the other boy along a little.

Nate gave the other guy a doubtful look, reining himself in. he wanted to know, certainly, but he refused to step anywhere close to begging, our to dance to another man's tune. "If you can consider something like that 'fun', sure," he said, allowing his tone to say more than the words themselves. He would walk away from this conversation if he had to, but - his tone suggested - if he did, he would leave it thinking his companion less than maybe he had first supposed.

Dodge found that interesting, that Nate was so quick to judge him like that. "You don't wonder what rumors people might make up about you if something happened to you?" he asked, looking innocent enough.

"I think that's another conversation," Nate told him. "Mostly, right now, I think you put something out there and now, for some reason, you don't want to say any more about it. Which mostly makes me wonder why you said shit about it in the first place, unless you're trying to make yourself seem mysterious, of course. Or there's something I'm meant to take away from it. So - what is it?" he asked.

"One you don't intend to have I'm guessing?" Dodge asked then shrugged again. "I died, which as you said, was for reasons. Why else would I do it. Telling you the details? Might lead you to figure out why or who I was. What's the point in blowing my cover. But you asked where I was coming from and I told you. Nowhere. I'm starting over."

"If you don't want to share the details of the fact that you faked your death to start over, I'd advise that you stop telling people you did that in the first place. There's a few people out there - as I'm sure you very well know - who wouldn't be as generous in their questioning as I am. Better not to let people know there's any cover to blow. Become your new being 'JD' - don't let on that there was ever anything else," Nate advised. That he knew a lot about: how to be something other than what you really were. How to make people see what they wanted to see, and not to look any deeper.

Dodge couldn't help but look at Nate curiously. Nate was right in what he said, but he wasn't the type of person that Dodge would assume knew about that sort of thing, nor was the the type the Dodge felt he needed to worry about when it came to his real identity. He wasn't going to tell Nate of course, but what would the well-fed kid have to do with the former Prince of Thieves. "You're quite the expert on the topic," he commented trying to ignore the fact that the hair on the back of his neck was standing upright.

Nate chuckled a little. "I'm no expert," he declaimed. "Just makes sense. You told me you'd died and, that got me curious. Then you immediately started to avoid the subject. Your first action suggested that you had a story, and that you wouldn't mind sharing it. Your later actions were pretty much contradictory. If you've got something you don't want people to know about, don't tell them there's anything to know in the first place. Don't need to be an expert to know that - just need to just your head. You can be starting over without ever telling people that you're running from something. Lots of people here, well, they're leaving things behind. This place collects people who are looking for something different. They seem to come together here. Maybe you'll find what you're looking for as well," he suggested.

Dodge still felt like he was talking to someone who might be adept at keeping secrets but he wrote it off as his own paranoia. Nate was a kid, about his age, who seemed to want for little besides his father's respect. He was offering Dodge a chance to find something, which was exactly what Maddy had suggest Dodge do. There wasn't a need to distrust everything the kid was putting out there, provided Dodge still kept his distance. "Maybe I will," he conceded actually sounding interested in that.

"There's no formal membership fees or anything here, if you just want to come round and hang," Nate told him. "They ask that if you can, you pay, but they know lots can't, so nothing's said if you can't. Could be a good place for you, if you're looking to rebuild yourself," Nate added, being encouraging whilst trying not to be pushy. His goal was to leave JD here, to introduce the guy to the kind of people that were here, to get him comfortable in this kind of environment. Of course, Nate wasn't actually going anywhere, he would still be around. But Nate was really just a recruiter, eventually, if JD hung around, opportunities would come up, opportunities that wouldn't necessarily come from Nate. Nate just opened the door, encouraged others to walk through it.

"I might try that, coming 'round every so often," Dodge said actively considering it. He'd be careful, but what Nate was suggesting was something he missed since letting go of his street gang. He was lonely and he didn't have anything to do with his time. Visiting here every so often might help to fill that gap until he could find something better to do with himself. So despite his own concerns or paranoia, he felt himself drawn to whatever Nate was offering.

"Well, then want me to introduce you to some of the guys?" Nate suggested, nodding towards a group. "You can get a feel for things - and it's a lot easier when you don't feel like a stranger," he added, knowing how that one went, even if he had the confidence to be able to handle himself in that kind of a situation. He was rarely a stranger for long.

Dodge hesitated for a moment, then nodded. He wasn't entirely sure, but meeting others couldn't hurt. That way if he did decide to come back he'd be familiar face. "Sure," he said giving Nate space to lead the way.