Who:Crazy and Crazier Where: A Ghoul Nest What: A proposal, of sorts. When: A bit after this
In general, Sparrow Peterson hates junkies. As a rule. They're messy, compromised, dangerous. And they're incredibly, miserably unreliable. That's why he stopped running drugs. Much easier to sell dangerous hunks of metal and gunpowder than tiny rocks of drugs and powders that are so easy to become addicted to.
But Big Blue is... different. She's an intoxicating sort of crazy, the kind of crazy you can get really and truly lost in. The kind of crazy that makes a crazy man seem that much saner. The kind of crazy that makes Sparrow feel stable.
He's found a subway car that's mostly unoccupied. It's not the one he's chosen as his, but it works for these purposes. There's a hummingbird skull, brittle and lacquered in black, hanging from the doorway. It's on a bright silver chain, untarnished but for the startling splash of red. The skull has been dipped in fresh blood that's only just starting to congeal.
There's always blood to be found, if you're not picky about where it comes from.
He's sitting in the car, sharpening an old arrow head, when she arrives. He looks up with a blank, stark expression. Nothing human flickering behind these eyes.
"You can keep it," he says. He's talking about the skull; he's got dozens of bird bones, wears three skulls himself. Morbid attachment to his name, he thinks, but it doesn't matter the reason. He collects them. He has them. They mean to him what oranges do, tiny things not to be taken away. "A gift, if you like."