Charlie Crews (i_zen) wrote in we_coexist, @ 2008-12-17 02:56:00 |
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Entry tags: | charlie crews, madame xanadu |
I was here, but now I'm...here [Crews & Xanadu]
Crews stood for a moment outside the station, his brow furrowing as he looked around. The street didn't look the same; perhaps he had missed something, but he didn't think so. He turned to look at the building, and it had changed. The world changed, and he would change with it. He would flow. He was a part of it all, and that thought alone brought a small smile to his lips. With a shrug, he pulled the phone from his pocket and dialed Reese, only to get a message stating that the number was not in service.
"Hmm."
The detective put the phone away and started walking; there wasn't much else to do at the moment. Plus, there was a fruit vendor on the corner. While apples weren't anything new, he found it a reliable choice. Of course, there was the star fruit beside it, but an apple was easier to handle. So, with the purchase of three apples - two in pockets and one in hand - he started off, letting himself be taken along with the crowd. He even gave one passing woman, heavy with child as they say, a smile and a genial nod.
"Ma'am."
Eventually Crews came to a stop; he looked up, to one side then the other, then down. Thinking, yes, he was thinking. Finally the sign caught his eye, or more he gave into the curiosity and read the sign.
"Hmm. To know the future. Is it fair to know the future? Wouldn't that take the surprise out of living? What if you saw the future and you didn't like it? Could you change it before it happens, or is it one of those things that no matter what you do, the future happens?" He glanced at the homeless man beside him. The homeless man stared back. Crews needed Reese; at least, she would react in some way. With a shrug, he pulled one the apples out of his pocket and handed it over to the homeless man.
"I'm going in."
Since the nearly missed apocalypse, Xanadu stopped dressing in the eloquent silk dresses that she had her business partner once wore to compliment Tea Leave's atmosphere. The seer learned her lesson. Next time the dead came for her she was going to be able to run away in jeans and sensible shoes. Instead of covering her eyes with an ornate blindfold tied into hair ornaments, she stuck to dark glasses.
Le Madame de Xanadu heard the bells attached to the door chime. She smiled peacefully.
"How're are you, today?"
"Curious." Crews bit into the apple, taking a moment to look around. He noticed the glasses, but for all he knew, she could like wearing dark shades. They called them shades, didn't they? He'd have to ask Reese about that later, if he found her. Maybe he'd ask Ted, who was currently in love with Olivia. Life was getting a little complicated, but he supposed that it had to. Being in a cell all by himself did tend to simplify matters. He counted how many times he chewed before swallowing; 23 seemed to be enough.
"Outside you have a sign." His head tilted slightly as he looked at her, his mind might have been wandering. "Outside you have a sign," catching the thought again. "I don't think it's exactly fair to know the future. Seems to be cheating. Do you think it's cheating? Can you really see the future?"
The detective walked forward, just a step or two, and took another bite of apple.
"Because cheating isn't a good thing." He nodded at the thought. "Cheating could be a very bad thing."
Xanadu gathered her thoughts first before giving him an answer, "Is it cheating to look at street signs when trying to reach your destination?"
He didn't ask about The City, and so she assumed that he had been here for some time. There were plenty of people that Xanadu had never met. The blind seer did not get out much. When her face was angled just the right way, Crews would be able to to pick up fairly quickly the purpose of her glasses. Looking into the burned out sockets where someone's eyes had once been was not a pleasant sight.
"Hmm." Crews took another bite of his apple and chewed, contemplating the question. The missing eyes hadn't been too much of an upset; sure, it wasn't pleasant, but it could have been worse, he supposed. The glasses helped. He looked around, just getting a feeling. There was a hint of a smile on his lips.
"Interesting, but does it count as your destination when you are expected to run someone down with your car? Would you still run them down, or would you try to turn onto another street? Would you be able to avoid the collision? That really is a morbid thought. What if you're the person who is going to be hit? Would you just be hit by someone else?" He looked back at the woman, brows lifted in question.
"Wouldn't it be better to let things come as they come? For example, I'm somewhere I've never been." He squinted, grimaced even. "I have to wonder had I known I'd be here right now." Another squinting grimace. "Would I have walked out to the street, or would I have stayed inside?"
"That's not exactly how it works," she frowned. "What I do isn't so specific. I look for patterns. The patterns allow me to help you make choices that--" It was much harder to describe without actually doing it. And then she started to unravel his last sentences. "--I'm sorry. Did you say you're new here?"
Crews paused to think about the question. Had he said he was new here? He might have. A brow lifted, and once more he looked around, as if it would help him find the answer. Taking one last large bite of the apple, he chewed, nodding. He was new to the area, he believed, because it didn't look like what he should have walked out to, and the building hadn't been the same building he left. So, yes, he was probably new, but if he existed in everything, was he really new at all? Could someone ever be new? He considered while he chewed.
"Do you have a trash can? I need to throw this away. I'm finished eating it." Some might have thought he was being nice to the blind woman, but really he was doing what he usually did - state the obvious. Or the obvious to him anyway.
"Apples are good. I like quinces; have you ever had a pomegranate? They say that might have been Persephone's down fall. I read it somewhere, I think." He nodded, forgetting perhaps that she couldn't see him. "I don't think I said I was new. I'm pretty sure, I didn't."
"Not in those exact words. But if this is your first time in The City, then... you're new." Xanadu walked behind the bar which had been converted into a store counter. She lifted a small plastic waste basket from behind for him to dispose his apple.
She didn't answer his question about the fruit.
"Has anyone told you about The City?"
"The city?" Crews' focus was wavering, as it liked to do, but he came back to the woman at the bar/counter. "The City. I'd say 'no.' No one has told me about the city. I'm guessing you can tell me about the city." He hadn't quite caught on that the "c" in "City" was capitalized. Not yet anyway.
"I hope it's not a dangerous city; I could use a nice city, maybe one with more fruit and...gumdrops." The gumdrops caught him by surprise, but he rolled with it.
Xanadu frowned. The question appeared to silence her. He hadn't seen The City paper yet, or he wouldn't have asked.
She remained quiet for some time before she forced a smile. "There's fruit."
"But...? See, I sense a but coming. Of course, it could be 'but we only have apples' or 'but there aren't any gumdrops.' I'm not attached to the gumdrops; gumdrops would be nice though." Crews had gotten fixed on the squishy candies; they went against the crisp fruit that he was so very fond of. But...new city, new things to try.
"Or could it be the city has a few problems?" His lips thinned as he nodded. Crews knew all cities had problems, and he'd had to deal with one or two of those problems. He'd been the victim of at least one.
"I could lie. I could say that The City is a wonderful place. That it'll take care of you. That The City appears to provide for everyone it brings here; food, shelter, money. That you never really ever have to want for anything. All of that is true, but it's not the entire truth.
"It's more like a prison here. Once you're brought here the only way out is death. And sometimes, not even death is a guaranteed exit. There was a disease recently. It killed so many people. Anymore and it all feels like someone's sick game.
"I'm sorry."
Crews took a moment to appreciate two things: 1) that the woman was blind and couldn't see his face the moment she mentioned one word in particular and 2) that she was honest. He turned away from her and looked out the window. Prison, again - that didn't appeal to the once incarcerated detective. In fact, he'd greatly disliked the pseudo-prison he'd had to go in not too long ago.
But, he could and would deal with the situation. He'd done it before; of course, many people seemed to think he had come out of it a little strange, a little different. He could handle anything. All he needed to do was understand that there was more. That life was funny, even if he wasn't laughing. He'd have to buy something later and give it away, or perhaps use it in some fashion that didn't make sense.
"So, we're not in Los Angeles, California?" He turned back to her, that strange almost smile on his lips. "Hmm. I wonder what that means? Any ideas?"
"We're not even in the same dimension, the same planet." Xanadu sighed heavily and set her elbows on the counter, resting her forehead on the palms of her hands.
"Not in the same dimension, the same planet." Crews did have a habit of repeating what he heard, and he was honestly trying to make sense of this. That, or he liked the words. Sometimes it wasn't the easiest to tell. "If we're not in the same dimension, the same planet, where are we? Other than here, and now. Well, not now now, but then now, because now now is ever changing. Then again, so is then now, and future now, which sort of makes now now a bit of problem to nail down."
"Does everyone where you come from talk like that?" She at least resigned to a small, mostly sad, smile. "It's just called The City. I don't know much more than that." Closing her eyes, the seer's fingers pinched the bridge of her nose before settling her glasses back down on her face.
"Talk like what?" Crews probably knew, but sometimes it paid to make sure. "I don't think so; my partner thinks I talk strangely, but there are quite a few self-help gurus who talk like I do. They make a bunch of money, not that money's everything, but sometimes it helps. I have money, or had money. Do I have money here? You think that bank accounts go from one dimension to another? I don't think I need all that money, especially if the city is willing to pick up the tab. How can the city...oh. The City - capital C. Like The Who, The Whopper, The Boss."
He took a deep breath, in with good, and released it slowly, out with the bad. "Right, well, seen any good futures lately?"
Her answer was a frown. Xanadu closed her eyes once more and removed her glasses. Turning behind her, the seer's hands felt the shelves behind the register until she came across a clay jar. She twisted the corked opening slowly and inside was a pretty blue-green earth that smelled vaguely of a salty sea. The mud did not look too unlike the type of beauty product young women paid too much for. Taking the earth into her fingertips, she smeared it over her eyes.
"I've been on the receiving end of several curses in my life, but being here has been the most difficult to adjust to. No matter what's happened to me in the past, no matter what's been done to me in the past, I always had my freedom. And when I first ended up here, I tried not to think about it. At first it was just another new place to explore. But the more I see..."
Xanadu paused in concentration. She opened her eyes to reveal they were restored and whole underneath. As pretty and as blue and green as the mud she'd used.
"...the less I like it here." Xanadu saw the detective for the first time. She immediately noticed the shield on his belt (the words LAPD replaced with CITY PD) and the holstered side arm. Xanadu liked his face. It was kind.
She started to wipe away the mud from her face with her fingers.
The brows were up again, a little furrowing as he watched. Crews had never seen magic, not the kind he was currently seeing, and he wasn't sure what the proper reaction should be. Fascination, shock, awe, jaw drop. He went for staring with a hint of that smile.
"Can everyone do that here? We're no longer on the same planet, same dimension, right?" He had to make sure he got that fact down. For all he knew everyone liked disco or new wave. Journey might be big again. "Neat trick."
He was ignoring the further implications that this was a prison; he needed Reese. Reese would make sense of this - she was good at being sensible. She could straight to the issue, the right answer, or sometimes the wrong answer that could help find the right answer. He pulled out his phone again, and while he did so, he finally glanced at the shield. His shield, had the right badge number, but there was that City with the capital C. "Yeah, like The Beatles. Coo-coo-kachoo."
"No, I don't think everyone can do what I do. Let me see your palms, Detective...?" He'd asked her if she'd seen any good futures. She wanted to see something good for him, about him. She wanted something to cheer herself up.
"Yes, I'm a detective. How'd you guess? Did you see it? The badge, right? Then again, how did you see it if you don't have eyes, well you did just have eyes. That's a really neat trick; I said it already, but it's true." Yeah, he wasn't catching on that she might actually want a name with the position. With a shrug and an almost boyish smile, he put his life in her hands. There was a soft happy hmph as he thought that one up.
"I saw the badge, and you weren't in a uniform so I made an educated guess. I was asking for your name, detective." She smiled gently before looking down at his palms. She watched them and remained quiet, breathing slowly in and out. Seeing is sacred. To my questioning eyes patterns emerge. To my patient mind, pathways stand revealed.
She continued to look, but either she didn't want to say what his future held or like so many others she saw none. Her thumbs traced over lines on his hands. Xanadu saw his past, major events recorded on skin. There were other habits she observed, not having to do with his fortune but the way his fingernails were kept, the texture of his skin. "These aren't the hands of a cop."
She hadn't meant to make the observation out loud.
"Not the hand of a cop." The detective leaned over a little to see what she might be seeing, or not seeing. He wasn't just a cop, he'd been a con too. "What...who are they the hands of? Actually they're the hands of me, and I'm a cop, so technically.." He was squinting again. "They are the hands of a cop, detective now, but still a cop. One of the boys in blue."
He hadn't said his name yet. "Crews. Charlie Crews." Now he had.
"It's nice to meet you, Charlie Crews." She forced another smile before letting go of his hands and avoiding the questions about what sort of hands they were. Xanadu searched behind the counter and found a rag to finish cleaning her face with. "You can call me Xanadu."
"In Xanadu did Kublai Khan a stately pleasure dome decree...or are you more of an Olivia Newton John, Xanadu?" Crews smirked, somewhat, as he new at least two references to the name. Unless there was another one he didn't know about. He did have twelve years to make up for somehow. He would have to think about it later.
"So, what type of hands are they?" He wasn't going to let it go that easily.
"Le Madame de Xanadu. I've had a lot of names. But I was there once. It was lovely."
Charlie Crews stared at the (formerly) blind fortune teller. It made sense he supposed; he bit back the next question that came to mind: how old was she? Blind, old, wise - it seemed to work for a few people.
"Right. Where?" The woman had still avoided the hands question. Instincts said she was hiding something.
"It doesn't matter. We're both here now, aren't we? Those are a prisoner's hands." Xanadu looked as though it had pained her to say the words out loud. She didn't want to hurt him. She looked him long in the face. "I like your eyes. Very blue."
"They are. Blue, my eyes. My hands..." Crews looked down at his hands, wondering if they did indeed look or feel like prisoner's hands. He sighed softly as he turned them back and forth. "Well, if you were from my dimension.."A quick squint. "If this is indeed another dimension, and I haven't gone crazy, then you'd know that I spent some time incarcerated. I was exonerated and given a large sum of money for my troubles."
He took a forward lean against the bar, elbows on bar top, chin in hands. "So, Xanadu. I like that name. Seeing as you seem to be my current guide to enlightenment, what exactly do we do here?"
"I don't think I can be that for you. Maybe once, when I was younger, I thought I could help others. I thought I could help them find their own way." Xanadu pinched the bridge of her nose again. But this time it wasn't due to stress or even a headache. She could feel that the eyes she'd spent considerable energy to regrow wouldn't last this time. The seer was, at least, glad that she'd gotten to see his face. She did her best to memorize its friendliness.
"We are masters of our own destinies." Crews pushed off the counter, hands down at his sides now. "So, have you ever been to prison?"
"Yes."
"Let me see your hands." Crews might not have been a seer, a fortune teller, or even good at reading palms, but he was curious. The request might have a little bit of the demand that was usually meant for the more criminally oriented.
Xanadu turned over her hands, palms up. She didn't mention that her arrest was political. That it was her feeble attempt to rescue Marie Antoinette that had gotten her imprisoned and nearly killed. Crews may have served a life sentence, but Xanadu had nearly served a death sentence. The guillotine, while efficient, was not a pleasant way to die. The seer had seen it once, herself.
"What do you see, detective?"
"If you were imprisoned, there has been enough time for any hardship to be smoothed away." It wasn't exactly cruel what he said, but he was saying what he saw. "Unless your magical mud can soften hands." He turned her hands over to look at the nails, another indicator of just how much and what kind of work she did.
"It was a long time ago," she affirmed. "The difference between what you do, and what I did: you search for clues to find what someone did, I look for clues to see what someone can do."
"What they did and can do, it's all the same." The detective let the seer's hands go. He had to admit it was nice to see eyes instead of empty holes. "Well." He really wasn't sure what to say, and he looked around for something to talk about or at least give him some direction on what should or would happen next.
"Yeah, I think I'll go back to the station, or maybe to the bank. It's strange. When I knew I had money, I didnt' care about it, but now that I don't know if I have money, I wonder if I have it. It's like that baseball card you wonder if you've got hiding somewhere. Or those Russian language tapes." He stopped and thought; yes, he'd have to look into more tapes.
"It will be there." She seemed so sure. Xanadu wince. Her hands covered her eyes. Now was probably a good time for him to leave. The seer was about to be blinded again, and the details of the curse were not pleasant.
"If you say it..." Crews smiled. "Xanadu, I do like that name. Xanadu. I'll see you soon, Xanadu." There was that happy hmph as he made an almost rhyme. Where was Reese when he needed her?
He took a few steps away, only to return and lean in close, his voice soft. "You have nice eyes too. A kind face."
And with that, he walked out, smiling his strange little smile. Or at least until he got out of the shop and around the corner. Prison, all over again.