corvus, jack (corbinian) wrote in musingslogs, @ 2010-09-20 02:04:00 |
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Entry tags: | eric draven, kaylee |
Who: Jack and Winnie
What: In which Jack is convinced to take on the requisite tiny thing for all vigilantes.
Where: Hamartia
When: Today
Warnings: None
It was sixty degrees in the Seattle, and the nights were rainy and cold and threatening to just become rainier and colder. Cap, which Winnie had been calling home for the past month had one bay and no heating, and it wasn’t going to work for the long winter. She’d known that when she’d used her last bit of ill-gained coin to buy the run down station, and she’d been saving pennies from jobs to rent something warm. But gas cost coin, and she didn’t have any to spare at the end of the day.
That’s why she came up with her plan.
Hamartia was close, and she knew the people living in the building didn’t have much in the way of money. Someone would surely be eager for a roommate.
She’d put her bright red hair up in two messy pigtails, and she’d closed the station down on lunch, and she’d footed it over to the sad excuse for an apartment building. She was wearing her work coveralls (red with white flowers on the sleeve), and she had grease stains on her cheek and nose, and she’d taken a seat on the sidewalk with her peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Now she just had to wait for someone to walk by that looked lonely, and she’d be shiny.
Jack didn’t think he looked lonely, really, but he was alone, walking back into the building with his hands in the pockets of his jacket, mind already on the night ahead. He had work to do, research to attempt on the mask killer and parts of town to visit that he hadn’t had the chance to go through in a while. It would be busy, most likely, but he liked staying busy.
He slowed a little as he approached the front of the building, the girl on the sidewalk catching his eye. No one sat out here, no one who wasn’t homeless, anyway. “New?” he asked, slowing to a stop. She either didn’t know what sort of neighborhood she was in or didn’t care, and either way, that piqued his interest. “This isn’t exactly a safe part of town to be sitting on the sidewalk,” he said, not chastising, just warning. She was likely to get into trouble of some kind or another if she made a habit of it.
She took his appearance and his cordial greeting as a sign, and she bounced to her feet as quick as you please, her hands shoved deep into the pockets of her coveralls as she bounced on her worn tennies. “I’m hopin’ someone’ll think that same thing real soon,” she told him, all smiles and puppy eyes. “See, I’m lookin’ for someone wants to take me in. I can pay rent, and I work real regular, and I’m not even a smidge of trouble to keep. I hardly eat a thing, and I can make a real mean sandwich,” she said, holding up the half-eaten pb&j as proof.
He smiled, unable to help it. Girls this earnest weren’t supposed to exist. “And you’re willing to take the first person who walks down the street up on their offer?” He looked at the sandwich. “Do you make anything that’s not peanut butter and jelly?”
“Only ones that look nice,” she admitted, giving him the sort of hopeful look that said he looked nice. When he asked about the sandwich she took it as a very good sign, and she took a bite of it, her fingers greasy with mechanic’s oil on the squishy white bread. “I can make somethin’ if you buy me the fixins,’” she said, and she started walking toward the door of the building. “You wanna show me the room?”
If there was one thing he absolutely should not agree to, it was a roommate. Particularly a young, innocent roommate who had no idea what she was getting into. At the same time, the idea of someone else from the building with less than honorable intentions hung at the forefront of his mind. “You’re a mechanic?” he asked, making the jump from all the oil and the work clothes. He kept pace with her, not telling her where the apartment was just yet.
“I own the station just ‘round the bend,” she told him as she grabbed the door to the building and held it open for him. “I don’t get paid so regular, on account of needing to keep the pumps filled, and I do a lot of work for people hereabouts ain’t got no way to pay, but the stations mine, bought and signed,” she told him. “And I’d do any work you’re needin’ done on the house.” She held out a greasy hand, the one without the pb&j. “Name’s Winslow, but my kin call me Winnie.”
He took her by the hand. “Winnie,” he said. “It’s a small apartment that doesn’t need much work, and there isn’t an excess of space. Is that going to be a problem?” He was searching her face, looking for guile and finding none. She was too trusting by half, and that in and of itself made him want to take her up on her offer. Someone should be making sure this girl didn’t fall headfirst into the sort of trouble she wouldn’t be able to find her way out of.
“It ain’t,” she said immediately. “I can sleep at the station when it’s warm, and I won’t bring too many pieces of engines home,” she promised. She waited to see which direction he walked in, and she tried to sound all casual when she voiced her next question. “You got any Reavers around these parts?” She’d only had the station for two weeks, and she hadn’t gotten a chance to talk to many Creations yet, not being on the network as of yet.
“Reavers? No.” He’d heard of the Reavers but never seen one. They were almost more a legend than a reality, Creations who had supposedly gone mad during the crossing. But it was difficult to disbelieve anything after you found you could bounce back none the worse for wear from a broken spine, so he’d kept his eyes open. “I was under the impression that they stayed out East,” he said. His eyes sharpened. “You have some personal experience with them?”
He walked toward the stairs, headed up. The elevator was mostly nonfunctional, and it would give her some time to answer his questions.
“Just curious if they’d made it west yet is all. Some came poking ‘round the shop back home,” she explained. The fact that they hadn’t come here made her feel better, worry gone in an instant, her expression back to unworried as she finished her sandwich. “What’s your name, if you don’t mind me knowin,’ seein’ as we’re livin’ together and all.”
“Jack,” he said, and that was that, pretty much, an agreement to her assumption in giving her his name. “Jack Corvus. Good to meet you, Winnie. And if Reavers come poking around here, rest assured that someone will send them packing. The community here may not all get along, but they’re fairly well-knit.” And there was obviously no shortage of vigilantes to take care of such things, particularly residing in Jack’s own apartment.
He stopped in front of 602 and pulled the key from his pocket, opening the door onto the living room.
The entire apartment was sparse and strange. The living room only held a few objects of note - a battered piano by the window, two guitars, one on a stand, and one leaning against the wall, and sheets of music with no lyrics taped and tacked to the walls, overlapping one another, in a few places covering as heavily as wallpaper. “I don’t have much as far as furniture goes,” he said, moving aside so that she could walk in. “We’ll need to find you a bed,” he said thoughtfully, “or a couch that can serve as one.” The door to the bedroom was closed, as was the door to the bathroom. “I’d appreciate it if you’d give me a few minutes to clean things out, I wasn’t expecting company.” Namely the facepaint in the bathroom and the gun sitting on his bedroom floor.
“Oh, you don’t got to do that. I’ll take the living room for myself, if you don’t mind all the mess about. If I get a boy, I can always take him to the station,” she said, a blush tinting her cheeks and making her hair seem all the redder for it. “You’re a man grown. You got to have your privacy for when you bring your lady friends a’callin,” she told him, and she looked around her new space. “This’ll do real fine.”
He smiled a little at the idea of bringing lady friends home, but didn’t address it. “I don’t mind a mess,” he said. There was no hiding the fact that he didn’t much care about his surroundings, or about making them feel like a home, but it was clean and at the very least it had that going for it. “You said you take work for free,” he said. “If that’s the case, don’t worry overmuch about paying the rent for a while. Try getting on your feet first.”
She smiled thankfully, and she gave him a thoughtless hug, unplanned and carefree. “I knew I’d find the right person if I just waited a spell,” she said, her smile bright. “I’m gonna go get some things,” she told him, and she smiled brightly and bounced on her heels a little, and then she slipped out of the apartment - her new home.