sixthiterationlogs | ( OPEN ) gotta get back gotta get free.

Entry tags:

( OPEN ) gotta get back gotta get free.

WHO: ~~Mayor~~ McChilicheesedog
WHERE: House 6, House 60, and beyond
WHEN: October 15-November 5
OPEN TO: OTA (closed prompts in comments)
WARNINGS: animagus times, general obliviousness, dust moths, tba

OPEN TO ALL.

After cooking for the Stark Expo, Frank had bailed pretty quickly thereafter, not wanting to stick around for the thank-yous and/or any derisive comments. He also really hadn't felt as though he had much to contribute to a "tech conference" even with no tech to be found. At first, he considers going to find that book Mark started with all the skills and scratching his name off every page, but he finds himself heading to the Lake instead.

Before he knows it, he's heading down to the Bunker and straight for that powers vending machine. He studies the choices for a long time, remembering his conversation with Kamala and wondering if this all isn't an elaborate trap. Maybe it does nothing? Just another way to mess with their minds. He's heard whisperings of people hearing one another's thoughts recently and decides he needs to pick something tangible. Something he can prove definitively worked or didn't work. His finger hovers over Animal Transformation, but then he swallows, steeling himself. To Hell with it, right?

It isn't Frank Castle who runs out of the bunker and back onto the surface, but a coyote. He will be easily spotted loitering outside House 6 like he's trying to figure out how to work a doorknob in this state. When he gives up, he goes to lay down in the backyard, like he's watching over the animals in the pen. The groffle and zalpaca graze on as if oblivious to a predator nearby. Perhaps because they sense it's not really a creature who intends them any harm. After a time, Frank nods off in that state and a croc-dog finds him, curling up under his chin to join in the nap.

Over the next week or two, people might spot the coyote who comes in close to the Villages, most often he'll be outside the Schoolhouse or the Inn but never does he try to venture inside or close enough to be caught. If someone catches his eyes, he'll run off towards the forest.

WILDCARD.

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That gets a snort out of her. Jess stirs the oats, unable to lower the temperature and mitigate the boil that's going strong. If she's the missus, that makes him the mister but more likely it's a Black Widow situation. The guy on those boxes always creeped her out.

"Hit the breadbox if you get hungry or sick." She nods to it over her shoulder. "Water's free, obviously."

He nods at the offer, noting how it feels like the liquid is sloshing in his head instead of his guts and he sets the glass farther away from his fingers so he won't be tempted to reach for it again. Not for a while anyway.

"Is anything ever really free?"

It's not that deep, but he's still salty about... everything. How no one seems to care this is happening. No one wants to mobilize to make things better. But maybe most of his upset lies in himself, and how much more he expects of the former Mayor Hotdog. A guy who's been too cripplingly anxious to do much for these people, whether they were grateful or not.

"Are you ready for Winter out here?" he asks, redirecting from his dumb philosophy to ask something actually practical, not to mention answerable. He worries about Jessica, so far from town. Not like anyone in it has been all that helpful. If she were closer to him, he could probably rig her up some electricity too, but as it is he thinks he should bring some supplies at the very least.

Yeesh, someone's been listening to too much dad rock. Or not enough. For his benefit, she'll pretend she didn't hear it over the scrape of the spoon going round the pot.

"I don't know, honestly," she answers as she looks around the place. The windows are single-paned so she can't stuff blankets in them but some could be draped and nailed across. She's not worried about staying warm as long as there's a roof over her head (and a superpower vending machine nearby: she can make firewood the old fashioned way with enhanced strength and/or, if/when it runs out, maybe manipulate her body heat directly). "I'll stock up on firewood tomorrow. As long as it stays warm in here, I should be fine. I prefer to sleep on the couch anyway."

So if he crashes, he better take the bed.

The warmth is good, and he's glad she's thinking about that. But he's more worried about her eating. He knows she could grab a healing factor from the machine, but that's not a guarantee of survival and it's wholly unnecessary besides.

"I'm gonna guess you don't have any provisions?" Before waiting for her to answer, he bows his head over the counter, needing to close his eyes a second to combat a sudden dizzy spell. "I'll bring you some shit."

All he does is can shit and knit and sew and shepherd animals, after all. Survival is the only thing left he remembers how to breathe in this place.

She has a big bag of oats and two buns, and no leg to stand on. Regardless, she's loathe to readily accept help. There's nothing she can pay him with, including knowledge. Jess hasn't learned much in her time here. She's shunted off practical experience for digging deeper into what they're doing here and who came before. It doesn't put food on the table and wouldn't even if she were doing it for the good of the community. Jess wracks her brain for a good way to compensate him, fetching a hand towel to safely remove the pot from the stove.

"Doesn't mean I'll eat it," she says for her own benefit, seeing as she hasn't worked out how to repay him yet. Glancing up from her task, she notes that he's a bit unsteady. Her turn to ask, "You okay?"

He rolls his eyes only to instantly regret it, holding one massive hand over them while he comes back down to Earth again.

"Just take it, it'll make me feel better."

Which isn't an answer so much as a plea. She can give him not a heart attack while he's worrying about her starving to death where he can't reach her, that's his price.

Jess sets the pot on the counter with a thud. "Then what's getting wasted for?"

Right now, seems like it was just an in for him to outline the deficiencies of her daily life. She's fine to watch him pity himself -- she's fine to pity him too, if that's all he feels like doing. But she draws the line at him pitying her. Cupboard doors snapping open and shut, she grabs a bowl and heaps oatmeal into it.

Worry and pity are two very different things, but Jessica so often confuses them that Frank isn't even vexed at her apparent annoyance. He always does or says something wrong when he's around her, it's the only constant he still has, and it's oddly comforting as much as he wishes he could just crush the last of the bad blood between them.

"An excuse to see you," he answers too honestly, cracking an eye open to watch her bang around the kitchen some more. He drops his head to rest on his hand so he doesn't have to look over his shoulder as much. "I could go for that water now."

Oh could he. All of a sudden, she doesn't feel like doing anything for him, no matter how small. Jess grabs the mug emptied of dry oats and puts it in his hand, making sure he's got a grip before she lets go.

"I wasn't aware I had a problem," she drones, finding a hidden jar of jam and unscrewing the top. She scoops a dollop into her bowl for sweetness,"You know I can quit anytime I want," and shoves the spoon in her mouth.

It's funny because it's true, though she has been consistently nursing a drink at the behest of her body chemistry. But that's been her choice. She's switch to water right now to prove it but Jess doesn't have to prove jack to him, and heads back to the table to sit down with her drink.

Edited 2018-11-18 04:07 (UTC)

What? What He looks at the cup in his hand then back over at her, completely perplexed and too tipsy not to show it.

"I don't think you have a problem." He's pretty sure he just admitted the problem was his, actually, but he really is well used to them having two parallel conversations never in danger of intersection. "If I did, would I bring you booze?"

Frank moves to stand up and is a little impressed when his leg holds him up enough to step his other one down and head to the sink to fill his cup. That moonshine gets worse every time he drinks it, he could swear.

"Good point. Shut up." She points at him with her spoon, then hunkers over her bowl. Wisps of steam rising from it cloud the "And quit spot-checking my cabin, counselor."

They've got other stuff in common than barebones survival and binge drinking, must have. She's unaccomplished at both. Can't be thrilling conversation unless he's here as a Hail Mary to prop himself up. Jess is that good a friend to exactly one person and she's worlds away in her Manhattan apartment.

Jess cools a spoonful of oatmeal with her breath and forcibly steers the conversation away from the lackluster state of her house and habits. "Tell me what's good about coyote life."

"I wasn—" he starts to protest, but then he just tips his head to concede her point. "Yes, ma'am." He'll shut up or listen or whichever.

Frank fills his cup and leans back against the counter to take a tiny sip, even though that's nowhere near enough Winter talk. Her pipes will freeze, does she know what to do when they do? He looks down into the water and tries not to scowl. The question takes him by surprise though, and he's looking back at her too quickly, getting a bit dizzy again but thankfully evening out just as fast.

"No one expects anything from you. It's... freeing."

Sounds like her situation already. Granted she wouldn't describe herself as "freed" here, unless it's freed from mind-numbing temp jobs and Help Wanted hunting. Sometimes she's homesick for Trish's overbearing tendencies, then whenever he comes around, he picks up all the slack.

"Yeah, I was wondering if you could see colors and crap, but that's good too." Has to be healthier than drinking himself unconscious but apparently that's the only way to hang out with her. Jess doesn't know where to start unpacking that so she isn't going to. She watches him as she eats, receptive to any anecdote that starts off "Once, when I was a coyote..."

He snorts, running a hand back through his hair before pushing away from the counter to go find his seat near her again.

"Coyotes see color, but it's different. Things are sharper that matter and everything else is soft and detail-less." He's not sure how else to describe it really. He sets down his water next to his moonshine and thinks about what else he could tell her. "This guy pet me once. It was weird."

It's probably not as much like being drunk as he's making it sound. And again, has to be healthier.

"Sure it was," she comments, unconvinced that a guy who looks like he does (and reeks of the same sad vibe, that careens well beyond the point of alluring well-meaning, healing types, and runs roughshod over warning sign after warning sign) isn't starved for any affection he can get. Plus coyotes are wild animals -- mangy, dirty, livestock terrorizing meat-eaters. Those puppy eyes had to have been working pretty hard to not get him shooed or chased off, let alone patted on the head.

Frank rolls his eyes, but ends up smiling anyway. She does have that effect on him, especially when she's right.

"You should try it. I'm curious what your animal would be."

Now that he's hydrated again, he takes the tiniest sip of liquor and settles back in to watch her. It's been too long, he thinks, since they've been in the same room together. At least, without a teenaged chaperone.

"Knowing my luck, probably a rat," or similar varmint. She would be content to land on cat or squirrel, to go about her business unbothered, or bear, to really keep people at bay, though like she said before, bird is the word. The learning curve might be painful but she would like to know what it's like to actually fly, not just hurl herself through the air and land in a small crater. Total control, from liftoff, through soaring and all the way back down, Jess can't imagine anything better.

His smile only grows fonder, holding his glass with both hands though he doesn't intend to take another sip for a while yet.

"Rats are kinda cute." And what's more, he thinks it might actually be a good pick for her, even if they have shit reputations. So does Jessica, but they both have good track records and they're damn good at their jobs. Okay, he's taking this a little too far, maybe, even in his own mime. Still: "And really smart... for rodents." He probably didn't need to add that qualifier.

She could see him taking rats in as easily as he would a coyote or other stray of ill repute.

"I didn't say they weren't," she gives a good natured (???? ????>?) correction between bites of oatmeal, mouth full when she clarifies, "cute." And smart but everyone knows that, that's why they get locked up in cages, bred to die. Comfy for a short time, perhaps, but prone to having their brains scrambled and cells messed with. No thank you. She would rather scurry around the gutter eating dumpster fries and getting chased off by brooms. "Plus I read somewhere, they were a total scapegoat for that whole plague thing." Whether that's true or not, it's a deeply relatable animal regardless.

He seems to consider it like he knows any better than her the history of plagues as a rat-borne illness.

"Have you tried it? The machine?" Frank is still convinced it's a wicked bad idea, but since when does he follow through on anything less.

"Huh?" Jess stalls as she tries to remember. It's like recalling a dream, one so real and vivid and mundane that she can't determine if it actually happened. "Uh, I think so." She has a vague image of what the machine looks like, or what she thinks it looks like, standing in front of it, contemplating a selection. Considering what a big, risky decision that would have been, it's peculiar that her mind can't solidify the event nor the events surrounding it.

Her crinkled gaze zips to her cup of moonshine, wondering what percentage, if any, it's contributing to her mid-term memory lapse.

Okay, he's not that drunk. That was definitely weird. Frank pushes both glasses away from him and leans towards Jessica, watching for anything anomalous in her gaze.

"It wasn't a trick question," he affirms, concern for her spiking all over again.

Defensively, "I know that." Jess's free hand comes to her temple, blunt nails scratching nonplussed circles above her brow. Her eyes lose focus as she looks inward for more snippets of information. What power did she choose? What powers were there? What's the one she has right now? She hasn't used it in ages. "I just don't really... remember. What I did with it."

Her tone is factual, almost sterile, so as to not betray how shaken she is. Her memory is hardly eidetic but it is relentlessly dependable. Right now, she's struggling to remember any distinct interaction prior to or since possibly using the machine, even as she reaches further in either direction. Days could be weeks could be months, she realizes.

"Jess..." She doesn't sound drunk, and she'd never actually forgotten something significant while drunk that he could ever remember. He's ridiculously worried now, his stool starting to tip towards her a little he's leaning so far towards her. "I think something's wrong."

His blatant concern helps to ground her own panic. One of them has to keep it together even though she feels closer to losing it. Until she does, she'll have to convince herself she can figure this out. Jess sits up straight in her chair, abandoning her meal.

"You're fine?" She needs to confirm. If they're not both affected, whatever's clouding her head can't be from their brush with the party or the booze he stole from it.

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