InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "I saw it with my own eye."

Gabe Wilder (afterwedie) wrote in we_float,
@ 2010-06-20 18:36:00

Current music:	"The Manual" : Travie McCoy
Entry tags:	character: gabriel wilder, character: matt cavanaugh

"Now we all make mistakes..."
Who: Matt Cavanaugh and Gabriel Wilder
What: A couple postponed meetings finally result in the real thing.
When: Monday, June 21, 8 pm (forward-dated, takes place after a yet-to-be-posted rp)
Where: Beth's Cafe, Seattle
Status: Open; in progress

What Gabe liked the most about Beth's was that it was one of the few places in the city that had gleefully embraced the lifting of the smoking ban. Most Seattle restaurants still clung to the idea that smoke tainted food or disdained the small pockets of ash that seemed to float to the bottom of Beth's floors but this cafe had gone as far as to place an ashtray on every table the moment the ban was lifted.

He ashed his cigarette in the one at his table, then slowly took a drag, staring at the ember at its tip.

He should have been home by now. Gabe knew it and yet he was sitting at a table, pulling out his notebook and sketching out the faces at a distant booth. Waiting for someone to come and tell him that the impossible was possible. His mind kept running over everything that had happened over the weekend. He wondered where his other self had gone after he'd locked him out. Wherever it had been, he was gone now.

Not for the first time, Gabriel felt guilty about leaving him in the cold. Them. He shuddered, wondering, and then went back to his idle sketching as the waitress set a second cup of coffee down in front of him. He smiled at her, ordered a piece of pie and went back to the drawing.

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	afterwedie 2010-06-22 02:27 am UTC (link)
	"How will you go about it?" Gabe leaned forward, his gaze intent. "Uh, fuck, how do you know they're not, like, tracking you or something?" (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

palehorses
2010-06-22 04:01 am UTC (link)

"I don't," Matt said with honesty. "In this day and age? Man, no fucking chance that we're not under some kind of surveillance, even if I wasn't, like, fucking bugged by the government. But if they have to drag us out of somewhere not fucking theirs, that's gonna look real bad if they decide to trot out their tame aces, you know? So best I can figure is find a new place to stay, at least make a nominal effort. And I don't fucking know where, nor how to pay for it, but that's a bridge that can wait a minute, at least."

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	afterwedie 2010-06-22 04:09 am UTC (link)
	"You know," Gabe said, "There might be a place." He tapped his finger against the cup. "I mean, do you want remote or what?" (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	palehorses 2010-06-22 04:15 am UTC (link)
	"Probably not," Matt said cautiously. "I'm the only one with a car, far as I know, and I'm not really interested in being the fucking bus. What do you have in mind?" (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	afterwedie 2010-06-22 04:23 am UTC (link)
	"I was thinking Elbe- my grandparents have a cabin out there." Gabe shrugged. "Might be good for practice." (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

palehorses
2010-06-22 04:28 am UTC (link)

"Too far out for living, though," Matt said. "Fuck, we need, like, a whole laundry list of shit, the more I think about it, and I don't know how to get it. But we can scratch the cars if we're living in-city. Be nice if someone else had one, but that's real low on my priority list to give them, you know? So, a house is the most important thing ... I might know a guy," he added thoughtfully. "Big maybe, but I might know someone who wouldn't ask too many questions. No idea if I could buy it - I mean, I'm on fucking record as a wild card - but ... that's later too." He stubbed out the cigarette. "Get off the government tit by moving out, start there. Need some income so we don't fucking starve, and I'm damn sure that no one's job, even if it wasn't in jeopardy, is going to pay for that. Maybe a scam of some kind - mess with the extra decimal places or something."

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	afterwedie 2010-06-22 04:32 am UTC (link)
	"Or um, you stay with the government until you get what you need," Gabe said quietly. "Dude, it's not like you can just, leave. You signed on the dotted line." He lit a third cigarette and puffed on it for a moment. "I guess I'd fucking think some more on that if I was you." It wasn't said unkindly but thoughtfully. "Make a list, yeah?" (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

palehorses
2010-06-22 04:36 am UTC (link)

"Yeah," Matt said, and it was a sound of disagreement. He lit another cigarette as well and gestured to the waitress for a refill on the coffee. "Thing is, we're not getting much from the government, other than the fucking house, you know? Granted, it's nice not to have to scavenge the streets for garbage for the Maker, but ..." He paused, and a truly terrifying grin crossed his face. "What we need is someone who wants us to disappear."

He waved that away with a gesture and added "Anyway, I told Katherine that I was only sticking until I figured out whether I wanted to be there. The pay's nice and all, but yeah. I don't know, I want to be away from her and her troops right now - I think it'd be a huge fucking motivator to make people do something, aside from everything else, but it'll need to be rock-solid before I go. I don't know." He looked at Gabe. "You sound like you've done stuff like this before. I mean, thinking about the organisational end and all. Yeah?"

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afterwedie
2010-06-22 04:48 am UTC (link)

"Um. Kind of. My grandparents are labor activists." Gabe fell silent again, thinking.

He put the cigarette to his lips and inhaled slowly. "When I was a kid, I went with them a couple times to hear the speeches. They like to get people together, have them march against the corps. Grandma's been in jail more times than I can count. It's...uhhhh... kind of a family tradition."

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palehorses
2010-06-22 04:55 am UTC (link)

"Getting arrested or activism?" The question was rhetorical. "So, yeah, since you're in and all, I totally want your help with this. I mean, I know what I want to do, but man, I fucking want help too, and you're thinking about this and all. You've got experience, you know? My parents kind of fought the law a little bit, but not anything useful like you're talking about - my mom's an attorney for fuck's sake. But I don't know whether it's better to, like, try to adapt the existing structure - which is basically completely nothing - or, like, be all my-hidden-partner and shit for a while, or how to handle it."

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afterwedie
2010-06-22 05:06 am UTC (link)

"I dunno, man," Gabe said. "You know them better than me. I know Zadkiel but I don't think he's the same as the others." He hesitated. "I can come around if that'd be good. I just gotta take care of some shit first, get the job nailed down."

He wasn't quite sure why he was so reluctant to tie his lot with the government when he felt completely able to do so with Matt. There was something about the other man that implied a lack of deception, however.

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palehorses
2010-06-22 05:26 am UTC (link)

"Don't know if it would be," Matt said. "I mean, come on, if we're under surveillance, you're gonna be noticed, and it looks like they didn't bother to fucking go after you or something, so clearly they weren't watching before."

He paused and looked stricken. "Jesus, do you suppose that maybe they're just completely fucking incompetent? That'd be fucking frightening."

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	afterwedie 2010-06-22 05:36 am UTC (link)
	"I don't think you're giving anyone enough credit," Gabe said quietly. "Be careful about that." He dug in his pocket for his credstick and added, "Um, let me get this. Just in case." It wouldn't do any good if he was being watched but if he wasn't, Gabe thought it might help to avoid a connection for the time being. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	palehorses 2010-06-22 05:53 am UTC (link)
	Matt looked mulish, then shrugged. "It's better to overestimate and find out later that you didn't need to, I get it. But man, the whole thing's been presented like it's a major fucking issue for Katherine to have any contact with us - I don't think I'm wrong that we're not being watched. It's like something on that end's not getting said or something." (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

afterwedie
2010-06-22 05:58 am UTC (link)

"I dunno." He slid his credstick into the table, watching as the numbers began to glow and scroll across the tabletop. Beth's hadn't bothered to invest in any sort of privacy screen. With a sigh, Gabe's fingers plucked out a tip, then pressed for a thumbprint.

He frowned, thinking that even that wasn't foolproof.

"You might be right," he said, relaxing after the amount had been accepted. "I, fuck, it's not like, I'd know, yeah? Uh, I'm just throwing shit out there."

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palehorses
2010-06-23 05:03 am UTC (link)

"No, it makes sense. Just, if that were the fucking case, why are you still, you know, walking around on your own legs? I mean, you know some of what they planned and where they - we - are ... honestly, if it'd been me setting that up, you wouldn't have walked away."

He watched the numbers disappear, and added "Maybe we shouldn't email. In case they're wondering. I mean, I don't know what kind of system we've got, and that means it's open for every fucking person who can tag a datastream to walk in and play pretend." He also made a note to ditch his phone and get a new number.

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	afterwedie 2010-06-23 05:08 am UTC (link)
	"Yeah." He frowned. "Dude, that... that really wasn't something I wanted to fucking think about. Guess I better." Gabe sighed. "So, how the fuck do we do this cloak and dagger shit? Leave notes in a drop? Meet up some place?" (Reply to this) (Parent)

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