Summary:Jason tracks a bad guy into the Disaster Zone. He runs across Gabrielle instead. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
Related LogsTheme SongNone |
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The high was 92F in Manhattan today, and the humidity was pushing 60. In short, for those without air conditioning? Miserable. And everyone that lives in the Disaster Zone is without air conditioning.
Most find their way into underground hideyholes in the wreckage that New York has never managed to rebuild. Get deep enough and it's cool enough to not be miserable. After five years, those still trapped in this no man's land have learned how to deal with the weather.
Gabrielle hasn't been here that long. Well, certainly not that she can remember. Instead of hiding away, she's stripped off the extra layers of clothing for her homeless chic look and is hanging out at a mostly-intact pool from one of the topped buildings that's… mostly clean. In shorts and tank top, she's not swimming in it, but she is dangling her feet into the slightly greenish water. She's even managed find a spot of shade.
Douggie K. Munsen isn't the name you'd usually think is attached to a serial killer, but here we are. A rash of killings have occurred across the city, though primarily of down-and-out folks. Immigrants, the homeless, runaways. People most folks don't really notice, let alone fight for. Jason isn't most folks.
After a week of tracking, investigation and tossing people around for questioning, he's tracked the killer to this stretch of wasteland. He won't be finding the killer today. However, he is walking the area in civilian clothes and taking it all in. Casing it, so to speak.
The handsome youth is dressed in tight jeans, and battered hiking boots, along with a faded Nirvana shirt. It's way too hot for his usual jacket and all that, so he has had to leave his gun behind. Instead, a knife is carefully concealed in one boot. A Padres baseball cap shields his face from the sun.
He rounds the corner of one of the toppled buildings and comes into sight of Gabrielle and the 'pool'. "Gotta stay cool somehow, right? This weather is killer," he offers. His voice is deep and pleasant.
Gabrielle Doe's head comes up, but not with the swiftness of a startled deer. Nor is the smile she gives him what one might expect given he's a stranger in a dangerous part of the city. The rest of her clothes are folded off to the side, and perhaps there's a weapon hidden in them but nothing directly to hand. Unless she's really good at hiding them. There's a gauntness to her form that comes from not eating on the regular and a very good eye might pick out the old track marks on her arms, visible only because she's taken off her overshirt and the bend of her elbows is visible because of how she's sitting on the edge of the pool.
"It's pretty hot." Gabrielle agrees, and even in the shade she's sweating a bit. There's not a lot of breeze here at the moment. "But I like the sun." She says, closing her eyes briefly and turning her face up towards it, that smile still on her lips.
"I'm more of a night owl," the man replies with a chuckle. "But…when the sun offers a view like this I can get behind it." He doesn't seem weirded out by or upset by her gaunt frame or old track marks. He's the last person to judge someone for bad decisions or hard times.
He makes his way over to the edge of the water, standing beside her. He reaches up to pluck his hate off, revealing his dark hair with the streak of white. He brushes his fingers back through it as he glances back down at her.
"I'm Jason," he says after a moment.
There's no flicker of worry as Jason approaches, her manner still at ease as he joins her. "Gabrielle." She replies, that smile still curving her lips like it's her default expression.
Gabrielle's gaze moves to the white streak that stands out against his dark hair. "We match!" She says, even if they don't. Not really. Her own blonde hair has a rainbow-colored streak. The vibrancy of it would indicate it's been recently done. Nor is that a cheap effect to pull off, so maybe the homeless attire is a mask for something else. There's an almost childlike air to her, certainly in that apparent exuberance that clings to her. The subtle compliment just has her looking out over what view there is of the DZ and now her expression does screw up a bit into a dubious look. She turns her attention back up to him. "I'm not seeing it. To get the good views, you need to get up higher." And in the DZ, that can be dangerous. Most of the building still standing look like they might come down if someone breathed wrong.
He laughs and shakes his head. "I wasn't talking about the wasteland," he retorts in reply to her comment. He does glance up a bit higher, though, eyeing the different buildings. Jason shifts his weight from one boot to the other, before he tucks his hands into the pockets of his jeans.
The young man glances back over at her and taps the root of the white streak in his hair, grinning. "Well, I like yours better. Less skunklike."
Since he's standing right next to her, Gabrielle looks over Jason's attire. Starting with his boots. She also leans in just a bit. Did she just sniff at him? "You aren't from here, are you?" She looks down at his boots again. "No one here has boots that nice." Then her expression pinches a bit and she finally gives him look like she might need to be concerned about him. Maybe. He's been polite so far. "Well. Those that do generally aren't very nice people."
She hasn't tried to scoot away at all, and despite the slightly suspicious manner that's crept in, she flashes him a grin. "You could color it? Don't know that rainbows are your thing, though." There's a pause. A brief furrow of her brow like she's thinking hard. "What's a skunk?" Those *definitely* haven't come up for her in the few months she remembers.
"I'm from Staten Island," he replies. He brushes his fingers thorugh his hair, considering her comment about dying it. "Well, it grows back in white eventually. I guess I could just…dye it black or something to match the rest." His tone shows that he isn't really in a rush to do that, though.
He glances down at his boots when she does. Their better then what folks around here can afford, but they aren't fancy. Sturdy and practical, if well taken care of. He blinks when she asks the question about a skunk and he glances down at her.
"An animal. Black fur with a white streak. Big bushy tail. They spray this…super stinky stuff to scare off predators."
Gabrielle Doe nods when he mentions Staten Island. She's familiar with the City's geography, at least. "I've heard some people compare here to there." She notes. "But that it looks nicer there." Parts of it, at any rate.
The suggestion of dying it to match the rest gets a wrinkle of her nose, the action more in line with the childlike openness that she's had previous to assessing his clothes. Of course, he fills out said clothes much better than most Zonies do, too. "Nah, then it's like you're just trying to cover it up. Go with like blue. Or red!" Her feet kick in the water a bit, sending the greenish water churning as she smiles up at him.
His position has put him between her and her clothes, but that hasn't seemed to bother her any either. As Jason describes a skunk, she tilts her head over. "Hmm. Well, it wasn't bad until the stinky part. Are they cute?"
"It can get pretty tough there," he replies softly. "Pretty rough." He plays with that streak of white as she talks about some other colors for it, filing the idea away for later. Unlikely, but who knows?
Jason chuckles and glances back down at her as he plucks his hands from the pockets of his jeans. "They can be, sure. When they aren't spraying you."
Gabrielle Doe has to lean back a bit, and tilt her head alll the way back to look at him since Jason's still standing. "You can sit." She invites him, amused. Perhaps because he keeps standing. Of course, being in dangerous territory, standing is the *smarter* thing to do. "So maybe it's not that bad to be skunk-like. You can be cute until you need to get violent. At least, I'm guessing that's your choice over stinky." She leans in towards him a bit, as though sharing a secret. "It would be mine, too."
It's a trace of wisdom amidst the almost childlike innocence she has. That yes, this is a dangerous place and to have come here and to stand here at such ease, he likely can be dangerous as well. "Are you looking for something? Or someone?" Because those are usually the only two reasons people come into the Zone.
He considers for a moment before he nods. "I'm going to take my boots off so I can dip them. I'm taking out a knife that's tucked it. I'm setting it aside. Not threatening you." He makes sure to warn her so the flash of metal isn't a surprise. He unties his boots and slips them off. He unsheathes a small, incredibly sharp looking knife, which is tinted black. He sets it aside and sits, dipping his feet into the water.
"Cute until dangerous?," he asks. "Makes sense. In that case I figure you're probably pretty dangerous?"
Gabrielle Doe's head tilts to the side, listening. Her gaze can't help but move down towards his shoes as he mentions the knife. She might sit up a bit straighter, like she's trying to see around his boots enough to figure out where it is before he pulls it out. Overall, she's still relaxed though. While a lot of the way she looks fits right in with street life, her manners just don't jive.
As he sits down, she leans over to bump her shoulder against his if he's close enough. "Thank you for warning me. I did notice that you skipped the question, though." Her expression is amused as she brings it up. She doesn't seem to expect him to tell her, though. She lets it drop with nothing more than that teasing. "It's not too bad here, during the day. Maybe it's the heat, or just that the troublemakers are sleeping. At night, you probably want more than a knife, though."
The question about her being dangerous gets a grin. "I'm usually more of a 'dazzle them and run away' type. I'm deadly to your nightvision." She says in a conspiratorial sort of whisper. Jason's close enough to get a better look at the marks on her arm. They're not recent. Probably about six months old or so.
He's close enough for her to bump his muscled shoulder, and he glances over with a small smile. "Looking for someone. Probably won't find them until the sun goes down, though. So…I'm enjoying myself for now." He doesn't expand on that, though. He nods a bit when she tells him about how dangerous it can be here. He swishes his feet in the water.
"Nothing wrong with running away. Being alive is important." He does notice the marks, again, and she can see his gaze briefly linger. No look of judgement on his face, though."
Gabrielle Doe doesn't seem to have any sort of embarrassment over them, either. And she definitely noticed, following his gaze down to them. "They itch, sometimes." She says with a shrug, oddly blase about the marks of drug abuse and there's another easy, bright smile when he mentions being alive being important. "So far, I'm a fan." She agrees with a small laugh, not knowing about her own 'death', let alone that they share that. Kind of.
The blonde catches her bottom lip between her teeth, looking thoughtful when he says he's looking for someone and it sounds like he might be staying after sunset. "What are you looking for them for?" She assumes it's important to him, if he's going to risk himself here. But that alone doesn't mean she's willing to help.
"They're doing bad things. I'm going to stop them from doing bad things," he says simply. He shrugs his shoulders and glances back over at her with a lopsided grin. He plucks his cap off and tosses it up. It twirls in the air and he catches it again. "It's complicated. Everything is, though, right?"
He looks back over at her, leaning over to bump her shoulder with is.
Gabrielle Doe purses her lips thoughtfully, arching a brow. It's not a subtle choice of expression, and that makes it a little comical. Finally, she says "If you let me know who it is, I might know something. I get around a lot of the Zone." Which is saying something. It's not really wide, but it covers a lot of distance.
When Jason returns the shoulder bump she chuckles. Her next comment might be a bit more random. "You smell nice." Gabrielle doesn't smell quite so fresh and clean, but she doesn't have any of the pungent odor often associated with the homeless. Nor does the pile of clothes off to the side. Maybe those that live in the Zone have managed to find a consistent source of running water to stay a bit cleaner than your average homeless person. "Sometimes things are complicated. But sometimes, they're very simple." She says, disagreeing with him.
"DOn't know his name. Don't even know if it's a guy. I have a feeling I'll know them when I see them, though." He blinks at her comment and then he grins over at her. "Well, thanks. Never got a compliment like that, before." He smells like clean man, really. No heavy cologne or anything, but certainly clean. It sets him apart from a lot here.
He considers that and then nods. "Well, fair enough, I guess. Some things can be pretty simple."
"What's simple and not can vary from person to person." Gabrielle says, looking thoughtful. "So *that's* complicated." She agrees, flashing him another smile.
His surprise at her compliment gets a bit of a giggle in response. There's not much else to call that light, bubbly sort of laughter. "Oooo, I get to be a first!" She sits up straighter, shoulders wiggling a bit like she's dancing in place. Just a bit. 'Preening' might be a good word for it.
She relaxes back into her calm, smiling manner after a few moments though. "Hey, never underestimate the importance of smelling good. Though, if I need to spend time in the really bad spots, I make sure I smell bad." She admits. "It helps to get people to keep their distance and ignore you. Helps if you can find something so you can't smell *yourself* at the same time." It certainly sounds like she's familiar enough with the harsher side of living in the Zone, but her manner is still upbeat.
When Gabrielle looks over at him again, her blue eyes seem old. But somehow no less innocent. "You've come a long way to track down a bad person that you don't know a lot about."
"I guess that's fair. I'd rather smell good then bad. But yeah, there's some practical uses to stinking, too." He grins over at her and then sighs a bit when she talks about tracking the person down.
"It's more complicated then that. I know a bit more about the person, but it isn't really something I'm at liberty to…really go on about. So, I'm trying not to go on about it, you know? Sorry."
Gabrielle Doe bobs her head in a bit of a nod. Her hands are on the edge of the pool and one foot kicks some of the murky water into the air. The droplets catch the bright sun and rain down over the pool, the breeze blowing a bit of the spray their way in a fine mist. "I can understand that. Sorry. But you have to admit, it *is* kind of the most interesting thing I know about you at the moment, Jason from Staten Island."
She chuckles then. "I suppose that means I can ask other questions." She nods over at his shirt. "Nirvana. Is that a band?" Because the shirt looks like a band shirt.
He watches the droplets rain down, and he follows suit and kicking some of them up. He grins and glances back over at her. "Well, alright, then. I don't know anything about you, either."
Jason glances down at his shirt and nods. "Mmmhm. Band from the 90's. Singer killed himself. Or was murdered, depending on who you ask. They helped introduce a whole new style of music. Not my favorite band, but I like them. Plus this shirt didn't have any holes in it."
"True. But you're not carrying this conversation." Gabrielle turns to flash him a big grin, letting him know she's teasing him. "But then, you seem like the type that might be happy to just sit quietly. I might start to feel awkward with all that silence, though. And honestly, it's better with me asking the questions. I probably couldn't answer a lot of yours." She lifts up one hand to knock her head with her knuckles. "I guess I hit my head or something, and so I don't remember anything past about six months ago. That's what the people that found me wandering around figure."
"Nirvana. I'll have to see if anyone I know has some of their music to share with me. Some folks have phones and they can find all sorts of stuff off the internet? I bet they can find some for me. What's your favorite band then?" The fact that Gabrielle can't remember her, well, life doesn't seem to bother her too much. Maybe she hit her head harder than it sounds like.
"I spend most of my time alone," he says after a moment. "It…well, it can make it difficult to carry a conversation, yeah." He clears his throat and glances back over at her. "Don't mean to be difficult."
"Really? Wow. Real amnesia, like in the movies. That really sucks. But…at least if a bunch of shitty stuff happened to you, you don't remember it? I wish that was the case, sometimes.
"Favorite band?" He ponders that for a moment, glancing out over the wasteland. "Bush. Still around, but…mostly for their 90's stuff."
"Don't think I know them either." Gabrielle says, but she seems to be making a pretty good metal note. She may never see Jason again but if he thinks that these groups music is good, she'll take the time to look into them.
"Someone made me realize that maybe people are worried about me. He's said he's going to see if he can find out anything about who I am." That seems to dim her bright manner a bit, though if it's the people worrying about her or someone looking into who she is isn't terribly clear.
Gabrielle chuckles. "You spend most of your time alone, but you came over to sit with me. Without looking to ask me any questions even though you're here looking for someone. Sounds like maybe you don't want to be alone quite as much as you are?" She shakes her head, not seeming troubled. "You're not difficult. You haven't gotten mad at me for being chatty, so I don't mind doing the heavy lifting." She gives him another grin, this one almost impish that lights up her blue eyes. It eases into something more serious. "If you want company, I don't mind. I'm *even* able to be quiet company. On occasion."
He offers a rueful grin and nods. "I don't always like being alone, no. I just happen to be." He kicks his feet a bit more in the green water before he glances back over at her. "Well, I'm glad somebody is trying to help you. If I knew the first damn thing about it, I would, too."
Jason rolls one of his shoulders and sighs softly. "I can be quiet enough on my own. I don't mine talkative company."
"Well, I'd see about coming to visit you and keep you company, but I've found having houseless people wandering into places in the city make people grumpy. Even if we don't smell like a skunk." See! Gabrielle is using her new word! She doesn't know that Jason also lives in a seekrit hideout. "You're always welcome to hang out with me. I just uh, don't spend too long in the same place." She admits sheepishly.
Those bright blue eyes watch him as he rolls his shoulder, like it might be stiff. "You look like you have a lot weighing you down." She says with what seems like very real concern. "I hope you have something that helps you smile, to lighten that burden, even if only once in a while."
"Not too much," he admits when she says she hopes he has something that helps him smile. "Not anything in…awhile, really." He shrugs agai and chuckles, glancing over at her. "It's fine, though. I can tough it out. And…I don't really have a place worthy of having company over, but…I can always swing by this area and look for you."
His gaze dips down over her briefly, admiring her, before he pulls his eyes away
It's the attitude as much as anything that gives Gabrielle a certain 'shine'. She's mostly clean, but she could stand to be cleaner. Her hair doesn't have the shine and bounce of those that have access to dependable utilities. She could also stand to eat more, to fill out the hollows in her cheeks. But her smile is bright enough to write home about. And she gives him another with a laugh. "Mine either." She admits, commiserating with him on the lack of real home.
Gabrielle reaches out to flick the brim of his hat. "I'll look for your hat." She promises. "Or the non-stinky skunk." The white stripe should be pretty easy to pick up as well.
The sun's started to dip, the light turning towards orange. Gabrielle looks up and sighs. "Well Mr. Cute Skunk, it looks like you're going to start looking in earnest and I should get somewhere a bit safer before the wolves come out." With some reluctance, she pulls her feet from the water and stands up. Her expression falls into something more serious than it has so far. "Be safe out there tonight, OK?"