gunsforhire | Log: Settling In

Entry tags:

Log: Settling In

Who: Agent Washington (OU)+open!
What: Adjusting to life in Gulch
Where: Scoping out the city (Shopping District, Park, a cafe)
When: Between October 26th and 30th
Warnings: None

York's safe house really had turned out to be a good choice. The security was good and it does make him feel better knowing that it was there. Lets him sleep more easily, when he actually manages anyway. It's better than staying in the casino with the constant noise of people outside leaving him on edge.

Getting to grips with the city is a top priority though, and has him heading out . Exploring. Scoping out is probably more accurate, treating it like he would a mission.

The shopping district seems the best place to start, busiest at least, and a good place to figure out what's normal here. The helmet store has a wide variety of them in the window, and he scans a catalogue showing enhancements and mods that are available. Some of those would be pretty useful if he's honest with himself. There's weapons shops too; nothing as heavy as the weaponry he's used to having at his disposal, but it's a start. There's a nice set of knives in there too. Now that is something he's going to have to get hold of.

He spends lunches in the park. It's a little surreal to see the covered ceiling up above and know that the sky outside could kill him, but it's nice to take off his helmet for a while. The place is climate controlled, and considering the last places he'd been at home had been a desert, an icy wasteland and a humid pit of a canyon, he's not complaining.

There's a little cafe a few minutes walk from the safehouse that stays open all night, and it's a better option to be there than sitting awake and twitchy in the safe house when he can't sleep.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Sitting in the middle of a wide open space doesn't exactly appeal to him. Oh sure, he knows that nothing is likely to happen in public in the middle of the day, but paranoia has kept him alive. He heads over towards a tree that looks like it could be comfortable to have at his back. Gives a good view of the park and that's nice. People watching is surprisingly good entertainment at times.

He walks around it to find that perfect spot, and nearly walks into someone else's picnic lunch.

"Oh, sorry. Didn't realise anyone else was here."

Abby smiles up at him, a friendly cheerful sort of smile. "It's okay, no bother at all. I guess I'm not exactly visible, hiding this close to a tree and all that. It's the open sky. Bothers me, yanno?"

Of course he would. All Adaptive natives get that paranoia toward the sky. Hers is just a little sharper, being a former street-rat and all that. Not like she always used to have somewhere to go when the clouds were threatening. And now look at her, set up with a little picnic and a thermos of the hot tea that her sister taught her to like, smiling up at a stranger without even considering how easy he would be to steal from.

Okay, so those pockets are SUPER tempting, but she's got restraint now, so it's cool. "Totally beat you to a super spot, didn't I? Sorry. Too few places you can have your back to in a park."

"Yeah, I get that. Too much open space." Not necessarily the sky, although he's had to take down hornets before because they are incredibly fucking annoying.

At least he isn't having to explain why he was looking at this tree to her. Civilians don't always get it, the need to have something solid at his back. "It's okay. Fair is fair. I like it in here, but it could do with more cover."

"Sit," Abby says, waving off his movement. "There isn't much better cover in a lot of places, unless you want to sit with your back against the restroom walls. Come on, I can't blame someone else for having my taste in sight lines. Besides... I can use you to test my new cupcake experiment."

"Okay." He isn't going to argue right now. He has food to eat and he'd prefer not to do it in the middle of the park. "Lines of sight, a solid object at your back." He sits down next to her, leaving a little space. "Cupcakes? I'm all for cupcakes."

"This tree is fake too," Abby says, tapping the bark behind her. "Easier to climb, branches sturdier. Good safety. Sorta."

She smiles and reaches over to her tupperware to open the lid and take out a cupcake. "It's chocolate with buttercream on top, but I put a dollop of strawberry jam in the middle."

"Well it does a very good job of pretending to be a real tree. Excellent undercover skills." Could probably deflect a bullet. Good.

He peers over at the little cake. "That sounds like a pretty good experiment."

"There are a lot of things that are like that, like me," Abby laughs, passing over a cupcake before taking one up herself and takes a bite of it.

"Well, the chocolate is nice."

He eyes her for a minute, then nods. "I had a friend like that."

He takes the offered cupcake and bites into it. It's a burst of sweetness on his tongue and he comes away from the bite with chcolate on his lips and jam running down his chin. "It's good."

"Thank you, Mister-Not-Necklace," Abby smiles at him, clearly joyful at his reaction to it. "It's the first cupcake I made all on my own ideas. There were ones like this at the bakery. My sister said I should try, have something to enjoy for myself. A hobby. What about you, Mister-Not-Necklace?"

Like she doesn't know his face. Know the differences with it. And honestly, she's unbothered. Call her more pragmatic than most people. Or just calmer about it. She's seen weird shit on the streets.

He tilts his head, gives her a questioning look. "Mister-Not-Necklace?" That's a strange nickname, and he's still got his scarf wrapped around his neck to hide the port. "And I think your first attempt is a success."

He will just finish it off right now. "Me? I-" What exactly has he done for fun in the last couple of years? "I used to skateboard."

"Yeah, because you look like Wash but you're not him," Abby says plainly. "Do all people who look like Wash like skateboards?"

She shrugs the question off and takes another bite of her own cupcake and gets to the jam, grinning at the flavor. Yep, this was a good choice. "I'll have to try this with other jams."

"Oh. Right." Does the Wash here know everyone? It feels like that a little. "I guess they must. I haven't skateboarded in a long time though."

He licks the stickiness off his fingers, makes sure there's no jam left on his chin. "You could try with darker chocolate too, if you find a sweeter jam."

"Darker chocolate?" Abby asks, shocked by that idea. "They have darker kinds of chocolate?"

Clearly she needs further education. "Strange, I didn't know that... So, Not-Necklace, what should I call you? Cause, you're clearly your own person, but I don't know you enough to bestow a nickname. Unless, of course, you want to be Cupcake or Jam."

Oh, Jam sounds like a good choice.

"Yeah," he says. "They put less milk and sugar in it, I think. It's a bit more bitter, but still good." And maybe it would work better if the jam was so sweet?

What to call him? Now there's a question. "I have no idea, if Wash isn't going to work for you." Since she obviously knew the other version of him. "It's my name so I hadn't really thought I'd ever have to share it."

"Bitter doesn't sound good," Abby notes, frowning thoughtfully. But I'll look into it. Sometime soon."

"Yeah, I know Wash. He saved my life. Or helped with it. Got shot."

No big deal, so she shrugs. "For now, I'm gonna call you Jam. Is that okay? Here, you can have another if you want."

"Yeah, that seems to be a thing we share. As well as the skateboarding." What a fine legacy they had between them.

He stares at her. Jam. Seriously? That wasn't even a name. But at the same time, she's offering him another cupcake and it was pretty good and... "Sure. I've been called worse."

"Well it's not a real name," Abby laughs. "Like, Necklace isn't really a good name for Wash. But he bought me one once. I was scamming him. Poor guy. And Omega is Medicman because he heals. And then there's Big Red, who is my boss. It's not about the names themselves. It's the connections."

She's all about connections these days.

Well, that makes more sense. He takes note of the scamming though. Take things she says with a grain of salt. "Omega. A medic." It's too hard to keep the scepticism out of his voice. Because Omega. The most violent of the AIs was a doctor here. "Well, it seems as good a system as any. Jam it is."

Abby pouts at him for that skepticism. "What, you got a problem with Medicman? He helped make sure my arm was healing after I got shot. He teaches me about wounds and infectious diseases and stuff like that. He bought be a cough plushie."

"Let's just say that at home he is not exactly known for making people feel better." And had caused untold chaos and death since his creation. And here? He's a medic. Seriously, what the hell?

Okay, now she's intrigued. Like, twisting her whole body to face Washington intrigued. "Wait... there's another Omom back from where ever you came from?"

"What? You can accept there's two Washes but two Omegas doesn't work? I mean, two Omegas would be too much for anyone but..."

"I can see you," Abby points out. "And you don't look like my sister's boyfriend. I can't see a second Omega. Besides, there are enough people in that family anyway. Like that quiet Fireboy, and Greeneyes."

"Sigma and Delta. Yeah. I know them too. Or... my versions of them." And he's getting more and more curious about meeting the ones that live here. "Yes, there was another Omega where I'm from. He was an asshole."

Re: Friday Afternoon (30th), Park

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