Wry and Watchful (wryandwatchful) wrote in solsticerp, @ 2009-12-22 19:04:00 |
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Entry tags: | hannah, june 14 2009, olivia |
Sunday: Surprise! You Have a Roommate!
Who: Hannah and Olivia
Where: Olivia's apartment
When: Late morning
Hannah checked the address one more time as she walked the hall of the apartment building, looking for the number on the crumpled piece of paper. Olivia Ferriera, the paper said. Apartment 215. She just hoped her contact had warned the girl she was going to have a visitor, or this was going to be interesting.
She found the number, hitched her backpack up her shoulder a bit, checked her knives and gun for easy accessibility, and knocked.
Olivia had been nursing a mild hangover from the night before. She had worked until ten and then went out with a couple other waitresses to Vapor. The place had been obnoxiously loud and full of people. And Olivia had loved every second of it. But enjoying it as much as she had also came with said hangover, which was slowly but surely disappearing with her shower and second cup of coffee. She had just sat down on the couch, still in her pajama pants and t-shirt, her hair wet around her shoulders, when the knock came at her door.
She eyed the door suspiciously, unsure of who could be on the other side of it. A salesman wanting to upgrade her cell phone, or maybe a Jehovah's Witness, god help them. Sighing, she leaned forward and placed her coffee cup on the table in front of her sofa before she stood and headed to the door. Unlocking the bolt and chain, she pulled it open, her gaze landing on the blonde woman. "Yes?"
As almost always, Hannah looked up at the young woman opening the door. She offered a jaunty little grin. "Hey. I'm Hannah Masterson. Dunno if your dad mentioned me or not." She sure hoped he had. She really did need a place to crash for a day or two until she got things figured out, learned the lay of the town, and whether it was safe to just camp out in her car or not.
Olivia sucked in a breath and stared at Hannah, knowing it was probably rude not to respond, but not caring. It felt like the girl had just sucker punched Olivia and she had no idea how to recover from it. Her hand tightened around the door knob until she felt her palm throbbing from the pain. Finally she managed to speak, proud of herself that she hadn't yet slammed the door in Hannah's face. "I'm sorry? How do you... how do you know my dad?" No, Marcos had definitely not mentioned Hannah, considering the two of them hadn't spoken in quite some time.
Sighing, Hannah said, "No, guess he didn't.... He's a contact of mine. Dunno if I'd call him a friend, exactly. Bastard doesn't even let me drink around him. Says I'm too young." She rolled her eyes at that one; it always exasperated her. "He knew I was swinging by this town, and said I should crash with you a few days. I hoped he'd have warned you. Can I come in, or should we keep chatting in the fucking hallway?"
"I didn't..." Olivia had no idea her dad had even known where she was. She'd hopped around the country so often just to avoid that very thing. And if he did know where she was, why wasn't he here banging on her door? Why would he send some random stranger to her house? Suspicious, Olivia eyed Hannah and mentally wondered if she would need the gun she'd hidden in the closet. "I don't mean to be rude or anything... Hannah... but my dad knows a lot of people. And he has a lot of people who probably aren't fond of him. You'll have to understand if I'm a bit wary to let you in when I don't know anything about you. Are you armed?"
"His favorite sports team is the Red Sox," Hannah recited, eyes skyward as if the "proof" were written there. "And you are a null. Random thing for a daughter of someone like him." Looking back down at her, she added, "And of course I'm armed. You crazy, girl? I never don't go armed."
Olivia was suddenly wishing she had never answered the door. Olivia rarely told people she was a null, and her dad only told people he trusted. But did Olivia trust him? A part of her didn't want to, but Olivia knew her dad would never put her in harm's way. And here was some girl, armed apparently, who needed a place to stay. Olivia was torn between letting her inside and telling her to find a motel. It took a few more moments of contemplation before Olivia sighed and stepped back to allow Hannah to come inside. Maybe she could just call her dad briefly to tell him to not send strangers to her apartment. "How long are you staying?"
Relieved that she wouldn't have to track down one of her other contacts, Hannah came in. "Just a couple days, until I figure out what's up with the town and where I can park and shit." And yes, she did mean where she'd park her car, but Olivia might or might not have picked up on that. "And so we're on even footing, I'm a phoenix. dunno how much youu know about those, but I'm assuming you at least know we exist."
A couple days. Well, that was better than a couple of months. Olivia walked over to the couch where her coffee was and instead picked up her pack of cigarettes. She had a window open so she wasn't worried about the apartment smelling too stale. "You're a Phoenix?" Olivia had known about them, but she had never met any. She studied Hannah and pulled a cigarette out of the pack. "I do know they exist, yes... I haven't ever met one, to my knowledge. I didn't know my dad knew any either."
"Yeah, well, if it helps, I don't know any, either," Hannah answered dryly. At the moment, she was the only one the Connected had, and her last acquaintance she had found outside the Connected had been captured and then killed for her feathers years ago. She slid her heavy backpack down to the floor just inside the door, looking around. "I can just crash on the couch, if that's cool. I don't think I'll be too much trouble, or anything."
"That'll have to work," Olivia said before pausing to light her cigarette, "since I only have one bedroom." The hospitable thing to do would be to give Hannah the bedroom, but Olivia didn't know the girl, and she felt she was being kind enough letting her stay. The apartment was nothing special. There was the couch, a side table with a lap. The coffee table was lopsided and had an old book under one of the legs to keep it even. Her television was small and old, but it worked, so she didn't feel the need to get rid of it. And Olivia generally at the the tiny two person table in her kitchen, seeing as she didn't have a dining room. "Uhm, kitchen is through there," Olivia continued, pointing through the open doorway. "And the bathroom is down the hall, first door on the left. My bedroom is on the right." She grinned a bit wryly. "Maybe try not to leave any weapons laying around." Olivia rarely had company, but if she did, she didn't want to explain any knives lounging about.
"They're usually gonna be on my person or under a pillow," Hannah promised absently, wandering around the small space to investigate it, checking windows and doors and the like. "Or in my backpack. I won't do anything to get you evicted or shit. Hopefully I'll be out of your hair before too long, anyway." If there was one thing Hannah hated, it was having to live on someone else's charity. "Don't suppose you know how bored the cops are around here, do you?" She paused, in the kitchen now, to shoot Olivia a wry little grin.
"That's fine," Olivia said, watching Hannah with careful eyes. "I have an extra blanket if you want to use it. And towels are always under the sink in the bathroom. Just don't shoot me or anything if you hear me in the middle of the night." Keeping a weapon under your pillow sounded dangerous to Olivia, but... everyone was different. "The cops?" At the question, Olivia pushed her damp hair behind her ear and walked over to the window to exhale some smoke. "I don't know. Darkwater seems to be a quiet place. You're likely to get a traffic ticket for rolling through a stop sign more than anything. There was a woman who went missing on the ferry, but that's been the most 'exciting' news as of late. Why?"
Making a face, Hannah answered, "Because bored cops are the ones most likely to check a car to see if someone's sleeping in it." She frowned out the window, and added, mostly to herself, "I suppose I could go back to the mainland and hide out in the forest." The very idea made her shudder, though. Crossing all that water.... She sighed and rubbed her forehead tiredly. "I guess I'll have to get a fuckin' job. Only way I can afford anything on this rock." She'd seen it as she passed through: all locally owned places. A bed and breakfast, not a motel. All bound to be hideously expensive.
Olivia could remember what it was like sleeping in cars. Anywhere it was warm, when she didn't have enough money to get a room. Thank god she was past that phase, because it had been hard. "Why do you have to hide out at all? Or sleep in your car... I don't mind you staying until you can get a decent place." Olivia leaned against the window frame, folding one arm under her breasts and taking another small drag from her cigarette. "There's some cheap places in town. My apartment doesn't cost that much a month, if you keep the utility bills down."
"Still gotta have a job," Hannah pointed out. "To afford living just about anywhere, besides your car. And I have a hell of a time getting hired anywhere." She swore too much, had too much of a temper, had no real experience or references-- not that she could give, anyhow-- and hated people in general. Yeah, she was real hire-able. "And I don't like living on charity, so...." She shrugged. "My car's the best place. At least when it's not freezing or raining or something."
"Whatever works for you," Olivia said with a shrug. She wasn't the type to insist that a stranger stay with her. If Hannah preferred sleeping in her car, then Olivia wasn't going to argue with it. "I'm sure you'll fine a place that's hiring. If not, hopefully your car is comfortable." She grinned and nodded to the cigarettes. "Do you want one?"
"No, thanks," Hannah said, waving a hand at her. "I've got a long while to live, yet, and my voice is bad enough already." She wasn't going to harp on other people's bad habits, but she wasn't about to fuck herself over for the next nine hundred years, either. "If you have any suggestions on places that might be hiring, where they won't care that I swear like a fuckin' sailor, though, those I'll take." She shot Olivia a grin, right back.
"Retail is probably out," Olivia mused, if the girl had a swearing problem. And she didn't think her voice was all that bad, but whatever, as long as she didn't get the 'smoking is bad for you' lecture, she couldn't care less. "I'd say you would do better to find a job sitting at a desk and typing people's work. Or working at a bar. There's swearing all over the damn place in bars."
"God, I hate working," Hannah grumbled. "You think there's any bars around here hiring?" She peered out the window again, dubiously. The island seemed way too damn small to have many bars... if any. It was so cutesy. Cutesy towns didn't have seedy bars. She'd have to go to the mainland-- which meant an apartment on the mainland-- which meant having to fly or ferry over any time she was supposed to be paying attention to the solstice zone itself. Fuck.
"There's a couple, I'm sure. Never hurts to look, right?" Olivia wanted to ask about her dad, when Hannah had spoken to him, and how he sounded. But that was opening a can of worms she wasn't comfortable opening yet. "There's a new club that opened last night, Vapor. It's loud, full of people. You could swear your heart out and I doubt anyone would hear you."
"Back on the mainland, I'm guessing," Hannah sighed. "I'll look into it. And wherever else is back there...." Fucking ferry. Fucking island. Ugh. "Think I could use your shower? I don't think I've been properly clean in a week." That's how long she'd been driving, once she got back into the states.
"Sure, go ahead. Like I said, down the hall on your left. Towels are under the sink." She motioned with her cigarette. "Uh, just let me know if you need anything else." Olivia hadn't had to be hospitable in quite some time, so she was trying to get into the right state of mind. She just preferred being on her own.
That made two of them. This wasn't Hannah's preference, either, though she'd been made to do this time and again over the course of her life, now. "I should be fine," she promised, and grabbed up her backpack again. "All goes well, you won't even know I'm here, most of the time." With one more amiable but slightly awkward grin, Hannah gave a two-fingered little salute to Olivia, then disappeared to find that shower.