the die has been cast (alea_iacta_est) wrote in _fracture_, @ 2014-01-30 00:17:00 |
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Entry tags: | caleb, chapter 1, harlow, the regent hotel |
laws of the jungle
Who: Harlow and Caleb
Where: her room/the bar
When: after this
Harlow had seen that letter that their new overlords had sent and she was none too pleased with it, so in true fashion Harlow decided they could all suck it and remained seated in her stupid room instead. She did not want to be here. She did not want to be closed inside four walls. If she had wanted that, she would have found a way to do that back home in Germany, but very obviously she didn’t want to if she choose to stay outside as much as she did.
Fuming, she sat down on the floor with her back to the bed and opened up her dufflebag to pull out a butterfly knife and immediately start flicking it open and shut, open and shut, open and shut while she plotted on a way to get the hell out of this place once and for all.
Caleb walked through the front door, but certainly didn't end up on the sidewalk like he wanted to. He walked out of what he saw was a closet in...an occupied room, as he was already speaking. “Lindsey?” he asked but as he laid eyes on the woman sitting on the floor with a knife, he was guessing Lindsey was elsewhere, eaten by the hotel. Apparently, for the second time that day. Well, shit.
"I would kill myself if my name was Lindsey," Harlow said in a thick German accent. Turning toward Caleb, she pointed at him with her exposed knife. "Explain why you were in my closet, now," She said matter-of-factly. She wasn't thrilled to see some random guy storming into her space, which even though she didn't want to be in was definitely her space. He had no place here.
“Cheerful, I see. Also, you're an idiot,” Caleb observed. “And I wasn't. I was leaving the hotel.” He didn't appear concerned about the knife. “This place is fucked.” He didn't move quite yet, because just because he wasn't worried about the knife didn't mean it didn't deserve respect. People often mistook that shit. Like not being afraid of something meant you could just waltz right by, or not pay attention to it.
Harlow's face darkened, her demeanor shifted and she advanced on Caleb a few steps, knife still very much out and very much pointed at him. "You came through my closet. You were in my closet, for however long you were there. What the fuck were you doing in there? Only true idiots think leaving hotels can happen through other people's closets…"
“Do I look like I could fit in there?” he asked, jerking his thumb back to it. “Why would I pick now, of all times, to wander out if I'd been hiding in there this whole time?” he posed. “And you're going to want to point that somewhere else,” he said, nodding to the knife.
"But you had to come through it at some point, so you did fit in it at some point. And people are freaks. I don't pretend to understand why you would hide and wait until now to show your mug of a face..." Harlow said, gripping her knife a little tighter. "You're going to want to have better manners. You are in my room, remember?"
“Yeah, and I didn't mean to be. So if you excuse me, I'll go, and leave you to your solo weapons party, and you can come talk to me later when you realize why it is that I came out of your closet without actually being in there,” Caleb told her.
Was her English not compatible with his? Did he not understand that, even though she wasn't pleased with him here, she had initially asked why the fuck he was in her closet to begin with and she hadn't really gotten an answer she liked out of him for that? Slowly, she put her butterfly knife away, into her back pocket, and watched him. "You said you were trying to leave but you ended up here….This had better not be where everyone in this place ends up when they decide to leave…Did your Lindsey also try to leave?"
“Thank you,” he said, to her putting the knife away. It made him less disinclined to answer her. “I walked out the front door with her. I walked out here. I'm not going to pretend I know how that happened. It's the second time today, however. The first time I wound up in the bar in the hotel.” He left Lindsey out of it, because he wasn't entirely certain he wanted this woman near her.
The second time today. The second time he'd tried to leave and he ended up right back in this horrible hotel. "Should have stayed in the bar." At least there was a bar. If she had to be stuck inside, she might as well be wasted while she did it. "Show me where the bar is," Harlow said, not really asking. It would not only get him out of her room, but she'd get one step closer to whiskey.
Caleb didn't drink much. Mostly, if he did, it was because he was beat to shit and wanted to numb the pain a little. Not that pain bothered him that much. He had a pretty high tolerance. Still. He was still worried about Lindsey, hoping she wasn't facing down anyone with knives. In the end, he figured it would get him out of this room, and maybe she would head back to the bar too. So, he nodded, and turned toward the door. “Fine.”
Harlow started toward the door, but in the process moved her knife from her back pocket to her front. If she was leading the way out of here, she sure as hell wasn’t giving him an opening to grab her favorite knife. Opening the door, she stepped out into the hallway for the first time and her face fell. “We had better not be stuck in this place for long. Who the hell kidnaps people to throw them into this hellhole?” Because that was what had to have happened, right? It was the only way this made sense. And she was going to gut them once she found them. Maybe she could even convince this guy to join in the fun. “Any idea who’s behind this?”
“This is your definition of 'hell hole'?” Caleb asked. “Something tells me you've never been to Bosnia.” he remarked. “Also, I don't see any signs of a kidnapping. If it is, it's the weirdest fucking one I've ever seen, and there's been no talk of anyone demanding anything for our return.”
"I have been many places," Harlow said seriously, looking back at him. Granted, not Bosnia, but she'd spent a lot of time traveling when she was younger and yes, everywhere inside was a hell hole. Everywhere that wasn't her out in the open, among nature, was a hell hole. "They picked the wrong people. Maybe our captors are fucking morons…" She mused, looking back at him as she walked. "What do you think it is, then, if not kidnapping?"
“I'm sure,” Caleb said, holding back an eyeroll this time as they walked down the hall. “I think I don't know the circumstances well enough yet to make a call on what I think it is. If I guessed now, it would be useless, just stabs in the dark.”
He was probably right, but Harlow wasn't going to admit that. She didn't admit that very well anyway. "You're very analytical," She said offhandedly, thinking she appreciated that about him but also not willing to tell him that. "So you will wait around until the right answer falls in your lap before you make a decision?"
Caleb didn't find that insulting at all, so he merely nodded. Yep. He was. “No,” he said. “I don't do sitting around very well. I'll do whatever I can, though currently there seems to be fuck all that can actually get done,” he admitted.
"Which sounds like you're already resigned to sitting around," Harlow said as she watched him. "If you don't think there's shit to be done, you're essentially sitting around, waiting. Go find a sledgehammer and bust the door down if you want to get out…" Which, now that she mentioned it, didn't sound like such a bad idea. Maybe she'd go in search of one herself after she secured some whiskey.
“Or, it means I'm going to approach things intelligently, and realize that maybe I should give it five, ten minutes of thought. But a sledgehammer, sounds like your personality. You go for it,” he told her, heading for the door to the stairs. He opened it up, then started down the echoey stairwell.
"Don't pretend you know a damn thing about my personality," Harlow said seriously, following him down the hallway. She did not like being out here. She felt more trapped out here than she had in her own room. One room was somehow easier to deal with than a giant, unending hallway inside what was starting to feel like a giant, unending hotel. "I just think, if doors don't work, make your own door."
“Really? Because you haven’t been perfectly clear you’re a blunt instrument?” Caleb said. “I think five minutes with you is more than enough to make that assessment. I’ll reassess if I happen to see anything beyond that at a future date.” He got them to the floor the bar was on then headed into that hallway, pausing as he oriented himself toward the bar. Then he lead on. “And I told you to go for it. If you want to crash through walls, or bust windows, have at it.”
"Oh, good, because I was really looking for your approval," Harlow said, thick with sarcasm as she walked along the hallway with him. "If anything, I'm at least a sharp object," She said, hoping she wouldn't have to remind him of the knife in her pocket but she could if necessary. She watched him out of the corner of her eye while they walked, though, still carefully trying to assess him and not really being able to put her finger on it. "Anyone ever tell you you're kind of weird?"
He was rolling his eyes again. When she said he was weird, however, he arched a brow. “No. I don’t get that one much,” he admitted. He got ‘asshole’ a lot, but not ‘weird’. That was a new one. “What’s making me weird?”
Harlow shrugged a little. "Not sure yet. You just are. Might have to do with the fact that you came out of my closet and didn't think that was strange…" She said, walking a little faster down the hallway to try and get a better idea of if that bar was anywhere nearby.
“Earlier I walked out the front door and wound up in a bar. I guess I was half wondering if that was going to happen again.” He saw her get ahead, and watched how she carried herself. She looked like she could handle herself if a fight happened. Not that he was planning one, but it was an ingrained habit. “It's up on the left,” he told her.
"There better be whiskey there. No self-respecting bar is complete without whiskey." Turning, she was very careful to place her back toward the wall. It was a habit and one she was proud to have. "So what's your story? Where are you from?"
He noted the move, but said nothing about it. He just marked it in his mind, adding to what he knew about her. Which so far included 'paranoid' and 'very aggressive'. “There's whiskey,” he told her. When she asked for his story, he shrugged. “It's boring, and not from anywhere special. I moved around,” he explained. “What about you?”
"Well, we're just two…what's the saying, peas in a shell?" Harlow asked, looking back at him after she made her way to the bar and began searching for whiskey. Because at least there was whiskey to be had. "Moved around too. Military family."
“Pod.” Caleb corrected. He leaned against the bar, glancing around to see if Lindsey was around but he didn't see any sign of her. “Did you join?” he asked. She sort of looked the type, though that was changing. Maybe it just wouldn't be difficult to picture her in uniform.
"Two peas in a shell pod," She said, a smirk on her lips as she glanced back his way. She popped the bottle of the whiskey and took a shot right out of the bottle. "Me? No. My father. Hans Schultz, career military man. Is that what you are? Are you a career military man?" That might make a lot of sense, actually.
“Why didn't you go in?” he asked. “Seems like it would have fit for you,” he pointed out. “And what do you think?” he posed, wanting to see what her answer would be. It would at the very least allow him to gauge how well she picked up on things, or how well she assessed people.
"Didn't want to go into the military. Instead, I took to the woods," She answered honestly, looking back at him at his question. She assessed him a little more, thinking back to the calm, collected manner he had when he just popped up into her room. "It's possible. You handle yourself in unknown situations very well and are definitely waiting for more answers before you draw your conclusion. But you aren't a soldier. Not in the sense that…not a foot soldier."
“Into the woods – you live there? Completely off the grid, or more like a Ranger, or out in Alaska, or...?” he asked curiously. Actually genuinely curiously, as well. He didn't know that he'd ever met anyone who did that, it was always just something he heard about.
That actual curiosity had Harlow smirking, leaning on the bar as she watched him. "Completely off the grid," She answered. "Not in Alaska. In Germany. Alaska's for pussies." Though she was probably wrong on that, it didn't matter. Germany would always and forever trump whatever anyone else had to say, about anything. "Got tired of moving around, don't much like people so I set out to live in nature. Nature is ruthless but honest, and people are too soft."
Caleb rolled his eyes at the 'Alaska is for pussies' comment. He just didn't engage her on it. “I caught on to the not liking people thing,” he told her. “What makes you say people are soft?” he asked, wondering what exactly fit her criteria of soft in the first place, or why the blanket assumption.
"People have morals. People have reasons. Animals, nature…they have survival. The strongest, the fittest, the best survive. People are soft. Except for that Donner Party business," Harlow said, clearly meaning it to some extent, but partially also trying to see if she could rattle Caleb a bit.
“So, what you're telling me is you're anti-social, possibly sociopathic, and are a survivalist to the extreme that you expect people to eat each other in extreme circumstances. Oh, and you're a crazy hermit in the woods,” he said. “That it? Anything to add?”
Harlow grinned more, this time purposefully making it as maniacal as possible. "Sounds about right," She said, though even though she was still grinning she wanted to add more to his assumption. "In nature, the rules are easier to understand. And more fair. That's all."
“The rules of society aren't that hard to understand. I won't talk about what's fair or not, because I happen to agree not all of them are fair in the slightest. But I feel like it's only fair to warn you. If you are really a sociopath, and you fuck with people here? I'm going to have to put you down,” Caleb looked her in the eye. “All law of the jungle like.”
"There are no murders you can trace me back to, Soldier," Harlow said seriously, though not without that glint in her eye. She seemed satisfied that she'd ruffled some of this smooth feathers of his and if she would continue to do so, fantastic. "But, like I said, I appreciate the laws of the jungle." Reaching for two shot glasses, she poured whiskey to the brim of them both and held one up after scooting one closer to him. "May the strongest survive."
And yet she hadn't said she'd never killed anyone. Just that there wasn't any evidence. Caleb eyed her. “I've got my eye on you. Remember what I said.” He didn't touch the drink, and walked away, done with this conversation. But he did know he'd be true to his word. If she started fucking with anyone in the hotel on his watch, there'd be a lot of trouble.
Harlow laughed when he walked away, thoroughly amused. “More shots for me,” She called after him and downed both of them just after. Right now, she was counting this day as a definite success.