InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "African or European?"

Snake Plissken (i_escape) wrote in we_coexist,
@ 2011-02-07 19:57:00

Entry tags:

snake plissken, zoe washburne

Escape From -- Nowhere? [Zoe]
Snake didn't think it was possible, but he may have finally found the one place he could not escape from.

Then again, it had only been a few days, so he wasn't counting himself down and out. Not just yet.

He hadn't slept since he'd arrived in The City. Sleep would put him at a considerable disadvantage if the truth behind his new location finally decided to show its teeth. (Or its claws, or its institutionalized police state, or anything else it might have been hiding.) As was to be expected, Snake was not a man who trusted openly. In fact, he wasn't a man who trusted at all. Once upon a time, he had devoted his life to a cause, but when that cause was shred to pieces like a bleeding man fed to a tank of starving sharks, well, he decided that there was only one person on the planet that he could put any stock in. And that was himself.

His energy was beginning to wear. And the hours of walking were showing scrapes on the toes of his combat boots and blisters on the bottom of his feet. But he was a soldier. A soldier, a fighter, a man to be reckoned with. (Even with one eye.) But even the best of the best needed to close their eyes every now and again, and fill their bellies with sustenance.

It was the smell of the Chinese restaurant that drove him to stay awake and kept him from dozing into a zombie state on the streets. Money didn't seem to be an option. (Or maybe Snake was interpreting his Chinese incorrectly.) Either way, the old man with the wire rimmed glasses and the fu manchu gave him a takeout box of pork low mein and an eggroll, free of charge.

Snake thought maybe he should bow in respect. But he didn't want to risk getting his head lopped off by some unsuspecting ninja. (Delirium was beginning to set in.) So he just nodded his head and left.

He found a quiet corner at a lazy intersection with a bus bench, and that's where he took up residence. (For the time being.) That overly large and unnecessary gun was set on his lap (for safe keeping) while he dug a pair of chopsticks into the takeout box. He took a big bite. Then another. Hell, he had forgotten how good it used to be to eat real food. Food that wasn't contaminated by the acid rain which had plagued America's farmlands for the last fifteen years. Food that hadn't been processed and reprocessed and processed again, just for the hell of it. Food that wasn't in competition with Soylent Green.

Snake sighed, glancing up at the tall buildings around him. The lights of Wayne Industries seemed to sparkle against the nighttime backdrop.

Fuck the rest of the world. Maybe The City wasn't worth escaping from.

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i_willcarry
2011-02-08 01:37 am UTC (link)

The night had gone by well enough. She had made a quick patrol, mainly just set out to see the Tower, before back to HQ and getting out of that damn suit. It would take time to get used to again, not that she'd had much time to get used to it in the first place. Alfred had informed her that her heart rate and other vitals seemed unharmed by her "time away;" even though, he was concerned about her running around the City rather than using any of the vehicles Bruce had left her. She had taken time to get cleaned up and suggest to Alfred that a flyer of some sort might be just what she wanted; she could learn to drive anything, but a flyer seemed more appropriate.

Cleaned up, and feeling like she got some small something accomplished, she gave Alfred as much of a night off as he ever took and headed out. There was a small place not far from the building she hoped would be there because she was hungry, and she didn't have the heart to tell Alfred that she wasn't up to anything as heavy as his Alfredo Florentine, even if she knew it was good from previous experience. That was another subject she'd have to broach with him: 1) stop calling her "madam" and 2) stop trying to take care of her, even if she probably did need it.

She found her way to the Chinese place, ordered a few baos of various fillings, even letting the nice Fritz - she never questioned why his name was Fritz - talk her into two dessert ones. They were great with noodles, but Zoe loved the buns. They made her happy in a bittersweet sort of way. She didn't even question the small carton of what she would guess was vegetable lo mein.

She took her boxes and made her way to a bench she thought few bothered using this time of night. It wasn't safe to develop a routine, she knew, but she liked watching the lights of the building she now worked in. When it got dark enough, there was something that reminded her of home, or at least the busier more populated planets they'd visited. Imagine her surprise when she arrived. There was some man with a huge gun sitting on her bench. While the Amazon didn't feel like fighting, she really didn't want to think of this nutjob running around the City wrecking havoc when she could have stopped it before it started.

With a soft sigh, she walked over to the bench, sat down, and placed the box of goodies between them. She opened the box she was pretty certain had her buns and picked on out to see just what sort of filling she'd gotten this time.

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i_escape
2011-02-08 01:49 am UTC (link)

Why did everyone in this damn city want to invade his personal space? First the flighty redheaded Brit with the whacked out brain cells, now a-- Snake looked over at the woman and, were he any other man from his world he might have done a double take. But Snake had seen some pretty tough looking broads in his time. And this woman beside him was no exception. She looked like the sort that chewed on nails for breakfast and then spat them out with exceptional aim. Snake might have even taken a fancy to her (provided her aim was dead-on as a crackshot and she talked half as much as that other crazy female he'd run into.)

But Snake wasn't the sentimental sort. And he only had one eye. He could never be counted on to see things that clearly.

He dug out another chopstick-ful bite of pork low mein, swallowing it without chewing. He didn't have time to chew. He might wake up before he actually began to digest, only to find out this was some sort of dream. Or worse. A taunting virtual reality created by the government. He ate an eggroll. Then he looked back to the woman beside him. She was still there.

It was probably the longest time he'd ever spent with a woman without either a) her yacking his head off, b) him stealing a touch or two, c) someone getting shot.

Better not spoil the moment with words. He took another bite of low mein.

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i_willcarry
2011-02-08 02:04 am UTC (link)

Zoe's brow lifted slightly as she tasted the barbecue pork. It was very good, just like her mother made, save for the fact that the pork and the sauce was all made up of the same stuff, with a little bit of flavor, what there was of it, added in. This was so much better. She chewed thoughtfully, ignoring any glances she was getting from the man with the gun. She'd let him wolf his food down in piece.

She took another bite before shifting slightly to give the man beside her a look, a good look. He looked like an old war vet, one who hadn't been treated as well as she and the captain had back at the end of the war. One that probably kept fighting even after the war was called done with. He understood the need to fight, and she wondered if he did it for money or if he thought he was still fighting some big fight.

As she chewed yet another bite of bun, her eyes finally fell to his lap. Of course, he could read it as an invitation, but the gun was sitting there. It wasn't any model she recognized immediately, something older than what she was used to, but a gun was a gun was a gun. Jayne would probably appreciate that bit of fire power. She was toting a sidepiece of her own, now that she had it back. The mare's leg was strapped firmly to her thigh, and even in these close quarters, she was probably very capable of pulling it free and using it. That and she probably had a few more weapons on her person, even more so now that Bruce had given her the key to his toy box.

Her eyes lifted to his...one? Or the patch. Yes, he had certainly seen the bad end of that fight and medical treatment. A brow raised in some unspoken question as she continued to chew. It was methodical, that chewing, and was soon finished with a swallow and the final bite of bao slid into her mouth. Her tongue absently licked her lips clean as she set to work on the last bite.

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i_escape
2011-02-08 02:17 am UTC (link)

Snake didn't need either of his eyes to know that she was looking at him. He could sense when someone was eyeing him up from a mile away. There was a certain feeling that went along with a scrutinizing gaze. Something stronger than the casual don't mind me I'm just checking out your gear sort of approach. She was looking at him like a soldier assessing a potential threat on the battlefield. But Snake wasn't worried. Not because she was a women. Hell, he'd had more than his fair share of women push him around. (There was a lot of bite and fight in his neck of the universe -- on the part of both sexes.) No, Snake wasn't worried because Snake was a man who had nothing to lose.

The best thing he could have ever hoped for was death. Unfortunately, there wasn't anyone where he came from that had the guts to really do him in. Really do him in.

And he was too proud to do it himself.

"Yes, it's loaded."

Two more bites and he finished off the low mein. He looked over at her buns. Yeah, he really wanted those, too.

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i_willcarry
2011-02-08 02:34 am UTC (link)

Zoe hmphed softly; it was something of a laugh. She smiled as she finished the last bite. She didn't care that he had "caught" her. Yes, he might have an advantage of where his gun was in relation to her, but she hadn't done anything yet to require his shooting her. Of course, he might be the kind who didn't need a reason to shoot another person, but somehow she doubted he was.

Her eyes dropped to the box of buns then lifted to look at his face. The way he ate suggested he was hungry and that he wasn't exactly one to savor his food. She understood that. Sometimes wolfing down food was the only way to get in a meal between fighting. Sometimes though a soldier wished there was nothing in the stomach when it came to fighting.

"So are these." It was a bad joke on the buns.

The Amazon set the box on her lap, reached to her side while holding up her free hand to show that she meant no harm - for now anyway - and pulled out a knife. It wasn't a very big knife, but that didn't mean she couldn't do some damage with it. It had a shine to the blade and a gloss to the handle that suggested it was well used and well taken care of. She lifted a bun out of the box and slid the knife easily through the middle, cutting the bun in half. She did this for more than one reason: 1) to show that he wasn't getting all her food, and 2) to show that it wasn't a weapon of some sort. She offered half the bun to him with an open hand. The other half she took a bite of, the knife in that same hand.

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i_escape
2011-02-09 03:28 pm UTC (link)

Snake stared down into his now-empty carton of low mein. He wanted to go back and get seconds, but he didn't have the luxury of indulging himself. This entire situation might have been some sort of charade. Some bizarre means of alluring him into a trap. And though he would never be so careless as to walk into such a position, in the past, he wasn't exactly at the height of his game. Not with his senses slowing down and his body requiring the necessary rejuvenation process of sleep.

He watched her when she pulled out the knife, his body tensing in preparation for the worst. (In his world, it was either eat or be eaten. And Snake wasn't quite ready to have someone gnawing on his bones.) When she used the blade to cut the Chinese dessert bun, he relaxed (but only slightly.) Then he took the bun in hand and eyed it carefully.

"I haven't seen food like this since before the war," he reminisced. And that was something Snake rarely did. Dwelling on the past only brought up painful memories of loss and devastation, after all. And such memories were irrelevant to the present. "What is this place?"

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i_willcarry
2011-02-09 10:25 pm UTC (link)

Zoe took another bite of her bun, chewing in thought. Well, how did she answer that? It was strange to understand how he felt, somewhat anyway. Food after the war, during, and even before it had been a little tricky, and she knew what it was like to eat the real stuff. It felt sometimes like a trap, other times like a miracle, to get all this fresh food that wasn't processed. It was real food, meant for enjoying as much as nutrition.

"The war make eating hard?" Zoe smiled slightly. "I know it did for us, but I'm pretty certain we didn't serve in the same war." Yes, she knew a fellow soldier when she met one, even if they were from a different time and place. She'd known Watson was by the way he moved. She finished off her half of the bun, letting her words sink in before moving on to his question.

"This..." She sighed softly. "Is the City. It's a self-contained, walled - unfortunately - area that has a tendency to alter terrain at will. Whether or not it is controlled by some unseen party or is sentient, well, I really don't know. It's large enough to contain a large Hospital, Library, and Park, even a law enforcement agency. All your provisions are readily available, including food, lodging, clothing, and if you need it, money." She sounded rather official, but that seemed the best for now.

"In other words, it's one hell of a prison." The Amazon smiled weakly. "Just in case you feel a little addled, there's a loony bin somewhere too. All the gorramn comforts of civilization." And there went official right out the window.

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i_escape
2011-02-10 05:12 pm UTC (link)

The war made everything hard. It hadn't been like the other battles and scuffs and wars that had made up his people's history. This was supposed to have been the war to end all wars. It was supposed to finish itself off with the destruction of the planet and all of the people in it. (They certainly had the weapons to do so.) But instead, it just made everything worse.

No, Snake was wrong. It wasn't the war that had made life difficult. It had been coming home from the war that changed everything. He would have been better off if the fighting had never ceased.

"Doesn't matter which war you fight in. They're all the same."

Snake listened to her explanation of The City with gritted teeth. The word prison came to mind before she even spoke it. And that made him angry. Angry because he'd just spent his entire life escaping walled containment centers, only to find himself trapped in the biggest one of them all. And what was worse? The City was pretending not to be a prison, when it so obviously was.

"Fuck this city. I'm not sticking around."

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i_willcarry
2011-02-11 02:51 am UTC (link)

"It's going to be harder than you think to get out." Zoe shifted to look at him. She knew how he felt, mostly. She didn't know his exact story, but she knew what it was like to be a soldier after a war and locked away from everything. The City had done a good job at trying to keep its captives quiet, but there were times she wanted to scream. Perhaps being Batman saved her sanity. She didn't like hiding who she was, but she liked kicking ass when she could. The constant need to make sure she was at her best helped too. It all gave her a place to channel her aggressions and frustrations. It also limited how often she wore a gun. Alfred was adamant that Batman did not carry that sort of weapon.

"The wall doesn't come down." She might have tried. She knew how to do it. How to make things fall with just right explosives. "The City heals. I'm not saying don't try it. I am saying don't be too disappointed when it doesn't work."

Zoe shrugged. "Though from the look of you, you don't have as much fight as you'd like in you." She could tell exhaustion, too. She'd seen it on the field. She'd felt it on the field. It was hard not to keep fighting because stopping may mean never going again.

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i_escape
2011-02-14 03:47 pm UTC (link)

"I've been in tighter corners."

Of course, that was easy for Snake to say, as he did not fully comprehend the extent to which The City had control over itself (and over its occupants.) But there was also the flip-side to this entire situation. It was possible that he didn't need to escape from The City. Manhattan demanded escape. Cleveland compelled escape. Los Angeles gave him no other option. But The City? Maybe this would be different. His surroundings certainly didn't feel as constricting. When could a man in America freely sit on a bench in the late evening hours without being accosted by the police for breaking curfew?

Snake had to entertain the idea, even if so briefly, that The City might not have been as bad as he thought. (Or as bad as he was imagining -- what with his past history.) Maybe this was the place he was trying to escape to.

That would have been a pleasant change.

"I don't sleep well in unfamiliar places."

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i_willcarry
2011-02-15 12:04 am UTC (link)

"Not like this. You don't have to take my word for it." Zoe shrugged, not at all insulted if he didn't. She wouldn't just take someone else's word for it if she were in his shoes. She hadn't when she first got here, and she still wasn't sure she believed everything she'd seen, done, or heard. It was just a constant state of learning and adapting. She looked at him carefully.

"How many wars have you fought in familiar places?" Zoe hadn't really had a chance to fight somewhere she knew or grew up. She'd lived a good bit of her young life on a ship, and followed that quickly with travelling from planet to planet, fighting the good fight. This just wasn't the same. "Even in places you'd been before?"

She gave him a soft and understanding smile. Pulling the small carton of noodles out of her many little packages, she set it down between them. "You don't have to take it, but they always give too much. You might want to sleep soon. If that weren't in your lap like that, I'd have you down quick like, and that's not bragging or threatening." She was being honest.

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i_escape
2011-02-16 02:57 pm UTC (link)

"I didn't sleep then either."

Not in the sense of actually closing his eyes and going to a place where the outside world neither mattered nor effected him. How had his world gotten to where it was today? And how had he been removed from it? Was it all another trick? A trap? A ploy to get him to be the government's bitch for some undercover entrapment that required his skills to fix? (To cover up and save the asses of the people in charge, was more like it.)

Or had he really, truly destroyed everything and this was the only place left for him to go to?

"Am I hurtin' anybody by just sittin' here? When the police slap a notice of the illegality of bearing arms on my forehead, then I'll think about keeping my gun at home."

Once he figured out where home was in The City.

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i_willcarry
2011-02-17 12:09 am UTC (link)

"They don't complain about mine." Zoe's hand rested on the mare's leg strapped to her own leg. "Then again, I don't have something like that sitting in my lap." Zoe tilted her head toward the gun on his lap. "I doubt they'll do much of anything to you for now."

The Amazon shifted a little on the bench and gave him another good look. Yeah, she understood the sleeping, or lack there of. The light dozing that kept her and her team, or more Mal's team, alive. They were both soldiers, and it was strange. It was until recently, until she'd woken up in the asylum that she realized there was more than one soldier in the City. Not just her. She gave him a soft smile.

"Look. Not giving a handout, other than the food, and it's just because I don't like seeing good food going to waste. Eat it." It almost sounded like an order. "I know some people could use a strong body or two, nothing illegal, and not really that adventurous." She pulled out one of those damned cards Alfred and Wayne Industries had foisted on her. "Call me. Name's Zoe."

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i_escape
2011-02-21 03:01 pm UTC (link)

Snake didn't know what to think about this woman. There was a part of him that liked her. Part of him saw her as a sentimental soulmate of war. Talking to another soldier was worlds apart from talking to someone who didn't know the pain of loss from battle. People who had been suffocated under the oppression of their own government, of their own commanders, saw life through a different shade of glasses. Snake felt that she might understand him better than anyone he had met in years.

And as much as he hated to admit it, there was something ... comforting ... in that.

He took the card when she offered it. And he would take the rest of the Chinese food, too. (Though he would wait until she left before he indulged in the pleasure of eating it.)

He looked at the card and nodded his head, then turned so that he could get a good look at her with his only eye.

"Call me Snake."

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i_willcarry
2011-02-22 12:52 am UTC (link)

"Snake." Zoe nodded. She didn't offer her hand, not because she didn't trust him but because he probably didn't trust her. Not yet. He didn't want to take the bun from her, not right off, so why would he want to shake her hand? They'd work up to that, if she saw him again.

"You should get some sleep." She started collecting herself and the one box of food she was definitely taking home with her; the Chinese buns could be eaten at anytime. He was getting the extra container of noodles. "I'm sure I could get a place set up for you; surprised the City hasn't already seen to that."

She stood slowly, turning to keep him in her eye sight, and to let him see that she hadn't pulled any weapons. Weary/tired soldiers could sometimes be more dangerous than alert/rested ones. The tired soldier was more likely to see a threat that isn't there at all. Or might accidentally shoot when that was never the intention in the first place. She looked at him again, her eyes narrowing a little.

"Like I said, give me a call. I know a few people. It's good work, easy work, and it'll give you something to do without giving you something to do." The worst thing to happen to a soldier is to take away everything, to allow him/her to get bored; a bored soldier usually turned to the more dangerous extracurricular activities. "Either way, I'll see you round, Snake."

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