ext_45890 (
smecker.livejournal.com) wrote in
taxonomites2010-12-04 09:26 pm
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[Location: Central, near but not at Taxon Mall]
Paul Smecker was wandering around the city, not exactly lost but nowhere near found, either. That sort of blank, overloaded expression common to newcomers flitted across his face at times, although more often one saw frustration. He was mostly looking at his tablet as he walked and trying to figure out the map function, with some goal of orienting himself in the city.
He looked scruffy, the product of not shaving in the two days since he'd arrived, and he looked unhappy about that. In addition, he was still wearing the clothes he'd arrived in-- the shirt, in particular, had a large but now dried bloodstain on the chest. He was also less than pleased about that.
The goal, inasmuch as he had one, was to find a place where he could get a new goddamn shirt, and a razor. (He hasn't figured out hatches yet.) So he was looking for the Mall. And getting goddamn lost.
He looked scruffy, the product of not shaving in the two days since he'd arrived, and he looked unhappy about that. In addition, he was still wearing the clothes he'd arrived in-- the shirt, in particular, had a large but now dried bloodstain on the chest. He was also less than pleased about that.
The goal, inasmuch as he had one, was to find a place where he could get a new goddamn shirt, and a razor. (He hasn't figured out hatches yet.) So he was looking for the Mall. And getting goddamn lost.
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Yes, Mr. Smecker, Angela is staring at that bloodstain. Ew.]
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"Goddamn piece of motherless whore-jumping so-called technology--"
Eyes narrow as he glares around, sees a dark-haired woman eying him.
"Use your piece of alien shit iPhone to take a picture, it'll last longer," he snaps brusquely, and lowers his head to keep stabbing fiercely at buttons.
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Her eyes widen and her lip curls in disgust.]
Aaaand they let the crazy in.
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"Oh, I'm sorry," he says in a tone of bitchy saccharine sweetness. "Here I was under the impression this entire goddamn city was something out of the more drug-induced writings of Philip KAY Dick, seeing as everybody here seems to believe aliens have abducted you all, and yet you still think the word 'crazy' has any meaning? That's precious. Be helpful or go away."
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[Right. Everybody's stuck here and this guy decides that being an asshole is the way to get things done. Too bad Angela is the wrong person to throw an attitude to.]
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"Hello! Are you alright?" He doesn't seem to be bleeding to death, which is a plus, but his appearance is still concerning.
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"'All right' is a really subjective term and I don't think it's applied since I got here," he says grimly. "At this particular goddamn moment? I am lost."
He bites back the urge to ask if she's a real person-- the silver bracelet on her wrist is a good signifier of that, he's learned now. "Don't suppose you know how to get to the mall," he says with poor grace.
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It's immediately apparent by the pattern of the blood that it belongs to Paul, and is not the arterial spatter of a murder victim or some other such worrisome thing. It's also clear that the blood is old, and Paul isn't currently bleeding out, so she won't ask if he needs a doctor.
"Sure, I can show you," she says, smiling agreeably and gesturing for Paul to follow. Jenny isn't much of a shopper, but even she needs new boots on occasion.
"I'm Jenny," she introduces over her shoulder as she leads the way.
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"Paul Smecker," he says in response to the introduction. "As you've probably guessed, I'm new." He pronounces the word a bit like it's a curse.
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[ location ] I am laughing forever :'D
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He'd had a crowbar for a while earlier, when he still had some ambitions of getting out that day and having to wrangle a few guards on his way out. There proved to be no "out." "Out" was not on yesterday's itinerary. Panic was, definitely, being lost, that too, looking around for anything to arm himself with, yup, trying to make calls to Sam's Florida number from his nonexistent keypad on his new phone, unfortunately yes, ditching the crowbar when he realized he was looking like a man wandering around with a crowbar, that definitely. And crashing just on the downward slope from his panic, and sleeping the rest of the night through.
He was lucky he had epinephrine and its aftereffects to put him to sleep, because otherwise it wasn't happening. The next day he woke up fresh, well -ish, as fresh as a man could be without a shower, and reorganized his thoughts.
The panic wasn't doing him any good. He needed a goal. An immediate, definable goal. One that wasn't too hard, that he was likely to accomplish and check off, not a huge empty box hanging over his head like escape. That, Michael, was what you called an overambitious goal. Bad goal.
Now he was frowning into the window of a department store, next to a men's clothing display. He could use a new -- well, everything. This was some kind of joke. He was in prison. Did prison take US currency?
Well, he'd figure something out. Michael gave himself a look-over in the store window to make sure he wasn't too rumpled (okay, he was, but what exactly was he going to do about that now), smoothed his button-down shirt a little and walked around the corner to the automatic doors.
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He'd found the mall-- with some help from 'Jenny'-- and found no shortage of clothes shops. In fact, some of them were nice shops, nice clothes, clothes he wouldn't mind actually being seen in in the real world.
They also had the price tags to match, and his 'funds' were limited.
He'd settled for buying one clean, plain white dress shirt today, of rather inferior tailoring in his opinion, but the price had been right. He'd wadded up his old bloodied shirt to chuck in the trash, put the new shirt on, and paid for it at the counter while wearing it.
Next on his itinerary was a razor, that definitely had to happen, then back to the 'Sanctuary' (really, that was what they fucking called it) for a shower and shave, sweet Christ.
These were good plans, they made him feel better about things, if things meant the super-immediate circumstances of his life.
He headed for the doors of the clothing store, only absently noting the presence of holiday decorations, Christmas music. These things had been going on in the real world too, they weren't so disturbing here.
He noted the mistletoe hanging above the automatic doors with an equally unconcerned part of his mind.
There was someone else coming through-- man in a lavender shirt, not altogether hard on the eyes although his expression looked about the same as Paul's felt. The tell-tale silver bracelet marked him as real.
They met going through the door, and right up until Paul got there, he fully intended to step out of the other man's way, maybe say a weary hello, an acknowledgment of someone else in this fucked-up city.
And then instead of that he found himself stepping in, neatly blocking the other man's path--
-raising a hand to the man's shoulder--
-leaning in--
-and pressing his lips to the total fucking stranger's with a certain fervor that suggested long and carnal acquaintance.
There's mistletoe, was all he could think, the only words that popped into his brain. You kiss under mistletoe. It's what you do.
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He stayed frozen in liplock for another five seconds -- while his brain opened the newspapser and caught up with current events -- before his good sense and survival instincts kicked in, which were to say, he shoved the man bodily away from him into the store through the glass doors.
The man didn't pull a gun on him. Michael stared. The man hadn't stabbed him. Michael stared. The man hadn't been trying to jab him with a poison syringe. Michael stared. Actually, it didn't seem like the man had been trying to kill him at all, which was just -- it -- what. The man looked like some kind of aging member of the Untouchables and had an old bloodstain on his shirt --
Michael stared.
I don't want a lot for Christmas! Mariah felt the need to add in his head. I won't even ask for snow!
Michael raised his hands in what he thought was the goddamn-near-universal sign for, I'm not making any sudden motions, crazy person, and took a step back. The doors opened behind him again and he froze.
Only one thing was coming to mind.
"Do I -- know you?" he said slowly, hands in the air.
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When the shove hit his chest and sent him staggering back into the store proper it was almost a relief. Paul, like the man in front of him, stared.
The. fucking. fuck.
He opened his mouth to answer. He shut it. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He opened it again.
"--no. No. You-- no." He stared at the man, and the motion of the doors behind him caught his peripheral vision, and then above that the merry little sprig of--
"Fucking god, don't step back through the doorway," he said with sudden terrible insight.
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"Okay?" he said, staring. "Uh, I'm sorry, but I -- I'm not -- I don't think I actually -- I'm not trying to cause a problem here it's just -- um, actually I think I'm in the wrong store, you know what I was looking for Macy's, sorry."
He took another perilous step backwards, all the while watching the stranger in case he made any other (VERY) sudden moves.
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"Exacerbation," says the judgmental sounding young woman. "You're making it worse."
Here, Paul, is a scruffy friend for you. She's bundled up against the cold, though it doesn't do much to keep her hair in any kind of order, and there's the nose of an honest to goodness spaceship peeking up above the rooftops.
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She's dressed in warm clothes which hide a lot of her, and Paul feels a distinct stab of envy-- he'd arrived in a suit jacket. A suit jacket that cost some $400 and is beautifully made, yes, well-tailored, yes-- but not exactly proper attire in a city with snow on the ground.
After noticing the warm clothes he takes in her words. There seems to be an awful damn lot of petite young women around getting into conversations with him. Although this one qualifies as the weirdest intro.
He snorts. "I've yet to discover a way to make it better," he answers tersely, eyes raking past her to see if she's alone.
He sees Serenity's nose. Fortunately for his still-tenuous sanity, Paul Smecker assumes it to be just another building, since the styles here range from Frank Lloyd Wright to French Colonial. Futuristic buildings, no big deal.
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Which, lucky for Paul, means he gets bland and casual interest from this petite young woman as opposed to, say, antagonistic trolling. She might even attempt being helpful.
"The Gordian interpretation is flawed."
Okay, maybe not helpful.
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"How so?" he asks. "Who's trying to get Alexander on this fucked-up city? Obviously not me, I don't have a sword anywhere near big enough. Hell, I don't even have a gun. If you do, then please, shoot me already, it would end the migraine. Who are you, anyway?"
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"Ain't a shepherd," is River's honest first answer.
"River," is the equally-as-honest second answer. "Guns are on the ship."
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[ location: the mall ]
So he found himself in one of those upscale boutiques, dressed in a bottle-green frock coat with embroidered lapels. There was a table with a dizzying display of silk ties in every hue imaginable, and Smecker would likely find Glitch gawking at it and clearly confused about which one to choose.
Yes, there is a zipper on his head. Good luck with that.
[action? oh these tags]
But that didn't mean he didn't notice the man staring at them with the usual look (so Paul assumes) of a straight man out of his depth when it came to fashion. Paul snorted under his breath, but felt vaguely... relieved by the sight. Alien world, alien people, but there were some constants perhaps?
It wasn't that he decided to come closer to the other guy so much as it was that his path to the door took him past the tie display. And as he came closer he couldn't help but notice things like, well. The clothes. The wild hair. The fact that the man had a zipper on his head.
So much for initial assumptions.
Paul slowed to a stop. He did a glance down at the wrist to confirm-- yes, a bracelet-- then stood there stupidly a few seconds. It was probably just an aesthetics thing, no doubt-- a piece of headwear designed to look like a zipper-- it was probably a lot of things and he should probably just keep moving with his bag of clean underwear, socks, and a razor--
"Do you need some help deciding on a tie?" he said instead, out of some perverse, twisted curiosity to know more.
[yeah, action and location are the same :D ]
Oh, this was someone new, or someone old that he'd just managed to dodge. In any event there had been a question about ties and oh yes he'd gotten sidetracked by shinies again.
"I dunno," he replied with a little shrug, then glanced at the display again. "I kinda want all of them. Except that one." And he pointed at a muddy brown tie with light blue chevrons. "S-so maybe I do, but then you don't really start with accessories, do you."
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"All of them? Let's not be over-ambitious now. Moderation in all things. And that depends-- I've had more than one tie I've built an outfit around. What are you trying to dress for?"
The questions were flowing glibly from his tongue, fashion-patter something he didn't have to think about as he scrutinized the other man.
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"A party," Glitch replied, all enthusiasm. "Well, more like a gala if I actually end up having it, so...something festive.."
Planning: not exactly his forte anymore.
"I-i-it's a little silly, I've got a wardrobe full of clothes from home. No reason to go all Othersidey now, but..."
Neither the sentence nor the thought reached their destination, sorry about that.
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