shatterverse | (no subject)

Current Location: US 34, Western Iowa

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It starts the usual way: A flash, a bang, a person standing, disoriented, near a long stretch of deserted road.

But this man falls to his knees-

(thousands of voices; screaming, crying in his head; anger and despair and everything in between, and he can’t fight, can’t ignore, can’t resist them; stop, stop, Goddess why won’t it STOP)

-and clutches his head, letting loose an agonized shout of surprise.

Then it's over, and it's like it never was.

Jamie lowers his hands, noticing in a detached manner that short strands of blond hair come away in his fingers, and sits back on his haunches, blinking. The last thing he remembers is laughing at a joke -- a bad one, with three tavern wenches and a statue -- and climbing a ladder to get at the apples high in an Olau tree. His shirt still smells like the orchard: sun and fruit and green, growing things. Had he fallen? Is this a fevered hallucination brought on by his broken body and healing magic gone wrong? Grace never could get the hang of it. She’s probably given him an extra thumb.

No. All’s right with that.

Digging his fingers into the earth beside the road, he watches it sift back to the ground. It's chunky and rough, but not dry. Even so, it's clearly not the smooth, dark soil of Olau. Jamie sniffs his hand, frowns and pulls himself to his feet. The road crests a hill to the west. Maybe there's something on the other side to explain what's happened; maybe not. Nothing to do, he supposes, but to start walking.

He'll get back to the pain (voices) in his head later. When the mood strikes.

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"That's not terribly reassuring," he points out, brow furrowed in thought as he accepts her stuff without comment. He has great respect for pack horses and doesn't mind being used as one.

He's quiet right up until she hands him the stuffed, not entirely cuddly-looking bear.

"Huh," he says, biting back a grin, "you know you can hold on to me during the night if you get scared. No need to bring him."

Eleanor affords him a very disparaging look in reply, which is greatly exacerbated in the half-light out here. She then leans closer to the pile of gear.

"What's that you say, Bear?"

She picks the toy up and holds its face close to her ear.

"Jamie's an ass-hole? Well, yeah. But he's kinda cute too. And his heart's in the right place. We're gonna keep him for now."

Rolling her eyes and smirking, she flips the bear over and tears open a hidden Velcro strip on his back. From amongst the stuffing she withdraws a few baggies that each contain a small amount of brownish vegetation.

"I wouldn't be dissing him if I were you. His insides are gonna have big barter value in this fucked up world." She shakes one of the baggies illustratively. "Hashish, or cannabis, more commonly known as marijuana. It's an illegal but popular recreational drug with no particularly harmful side-effects. When smoked or eaten it makes most users happy and relaxed."

After all these years Eleanor still has a soft spot for Bear, but who would ever suspect it when his purpose is primarily drug muling.

Up go the eyebrows.

"Happy and relaxed? Why ever would encouraging that be illegal," he smirks. "Why don't we suggest to Ethan that he try it?"

Happy and relaxed people are more talkative.

After carefully depositing his armful of stuff -- which he intends to carry in for her, later -- on a bench, Jamie gives Eleanor a meaningful look and swings himself around one of the poles holding the tin roof over the truck, the bike and some other large vehicle under a tarp. Along the wall of the house, he sees a large metal box, full of thin, impractical looking drawers, and decides to investigate. It's nothing but a glorified toolbox, but it's all shiny and new to Jamie. He rifles through wrenches and screwdrivers and some cylindrical toy he flips to the side, until one of the drawers jams. Looking around, he gives it a swift, surreptitious yank.

Plastic cards fly through the air and fall to litter the ground at their feet.

"Mithros," Jamie swears quietly, bending on one knee to gather them up.

"Heh. Not a bad idea," Eleanor replies.

"Surely there's something like this on Tortall—" she follows up, only to break off when she hears the rummaging. She turns to see what he's getting into.

"Um... what are you doing?"

The sticky drawer bursts open and spreads its plastic wares over the concrete floor of the carport. Eleanor face-palms, then stalks over to help him collect and re-stow whatever he caused to spill.

"Shit, AJ, you're worse than my mother," she chides. "I was just thinking how nice it was that they hadn't been through my stuff while we were inside, and here's you, randomly tearing their place apart."

It's only when she starts to pick the credit cards up that she realizes what they are. And suddenly, she's not in as big of a hurry to get them back in the drawer.

"Woah..."

"Vladimir."

Jamie eyes the Visa card in his hand.

"Not a one of them looks like a 'Vladimir.' Or a-" He lifts another card, sparing a quick moment to examine the black strip on the back, and continues in an even lower whisper. "'Louisa.' And this isn't anyone we met."

He waves a Des Moines City Library card in her face. 'Butch' won't be checking out any books without that.

Eleanor's going through much the same process, reading all the different names off the various cards. It's clear that none of them belong to Ethan, Emily or Dan, unless they're in the spy game. And they don't seem like the type for that.

"This is a lot of identity theft," she muses, rationally.

"Guess the bottom dropped out of that business pretty quick when the monsters moved in."

Identity theft sounds rather ominous to someone from Tortall, where shape-shifting isn't unheard of; Jamie wipes his hands on his new jeans after returning his stack of cards to the drawer, as if wiping away the taint of association.

"I don't understand," he grunts, frowning now.

"As far as I can tell," Eleanor says, in what is now a conspiratorial whisper, "we've stumbled onto a family of professional pick-pockets."

He should be able to understand that.

"Or maybe just one of them is. Dunno."

She follows suit by depositing her collection of cards into the drawer. She then closes it and moves back to her bike.

"Most of those cards are like money. You can use them at stores to buy things, up to a certain limit. Not anymore though. Not with phones and internet all down and the global economy almost wiped out. But, when they worked, they could be stolen, and used until the owners canceled them."

"Then why this?" he asks, waving a hand at the house, the woods. "They don't live like successful thieves."

Trust him. He knows successful thieves. He does not, however, know what she means by 'internet.'

"I think we should look around."

"Maybe this is just one of their homes," Eleanor hazards. "Or maybe they weren't successful? It's a fairly petty crime here on Earth."

She lifts a questioning eyebrow at him, then pointedly shifts her gaze to the tree-line.

"Yeah, fine. There's something not right here, but I'm not up for snooping around right now. It's too dark, and who knows how close our woody friends out there can come."

Plus, she's still tired and hurting. She won't admit that though.

Instead, she reaches out and hooks a finger into the nearest belt loop of his jeans. A gentle tug follows, loaded with suggestiveness, possibly more convincing than anything she said if he needs a good reason to wait until morning.

Jamie's not feeling particularly great either, but he's managed to compartmentalize the worst of the pain, push it to the back of his mind, in a move he doesn't fully understand. It's like he doesn't want to hurt, and so the pain lessens. Alanna would have a thing or two to say about that.

Thoughts of his mother are firmly pushed even farther than the pain, and he wraps his good -- well, better -- arm around Eleanor's waist, fitting her to his lanky frame.

"Most people consider darkness the optimum condition for sneaking around," he murmurs, eyes roaming over her face. His mouth brushes hers, and he nips gently at her lower lip. "Just a bit more. I promise."

He's very good at the art of persuasion.

Edited 2008-10-15 02:10 (UTC)

Eleanor heaves a theatrical sigh of disappointment after the all-too-fleeting taste of him, and affects a petulant scowl.

"I hate you."

Except, she quite obviously doesn't. She gives his shin a mild kick to show him what she thinks of his carrot-dangling tactics. They're her tactics, and yet he's winning with them! It's very frustrating.

She then spins around and starts tramping towards the back of the house. Since she has the lamp, this leaves Jamie in almost total darkness.

"Come on," she hisses. "Let's get this over with, paranoia-boy."

Luckily for him, Jamie comes from a world without electricity and can still see his way reasonably well. An exaggerated wince crosses his face as soon as she turns away from him, and he gives his leg a shake. Verdict: He'll live.

"I don't, you know," he says mildly, his long legs allowing him to catch up in a hurry. "Hate you."

The grin he aims in her direction is very cheeky.

"I can't think of anyone else I'd rather be with at the moment."

"Lucky me," Eleanor deadpans.

While there's no answering grin, she can't keep a smirk off her face.

She draws his arm around her waist again. "You probably ought to show it. We're just out for an evening stroll and a breath of night air as far as anyone else is concerned."

He complies, squeezing gently.

"Aye. Best to keep up appearances." A task he has no trouble taking on. "Look, there's another small building there."

A greenhouse, or garden shed.

"Ooh. Let's check it out. It could be another clue!" Eleanor bubbles. Her hushed enthusiasm is so exaggerated that it has to be fake.

As for the structure, it turns out to be a rickety wooden shed that has definitely seen better days. The timbers look rotten and cracked in many places and there are some unpleasantly large cobwebs wreathing its eaves.

Eleanor wrinkles her nose as they near it. "Kinda creepy."

In punishment, he slides a finger under her waistband for a slow caress.

"Mmmmm."

Eyes narrowing, he breaks away and gives the door a good shove. It creaks open in a shower of dust, and Jamie covers his nose and mouth to avoid coughing.

"What a mess," he declares, entering. And it is, even for a little used shed. He's vaguely scandalized at the state of the few tools he sees: rusty, filthy and covered in webs. Beyond a dirty rake, he finds a pile of similarly neglected clothing, though some appears cleaner and brighter than the rest. "Clothes? I hope this shirt didn't come from here."

Appeased (and encouraged) by Jamie's little display of affection, Eleanor continues to go along with his detective work. She follows him into the shed, bathing everything in the soft flickering light from her lamp.

"It might have," she chuckles unconcernedly.

She proceeds to pick a few garments up from the jumble of apparel and inspect them. There are all kinds of items, catering for men, women and children. And there's a whole range of different sizes. Casual wear, active wear, formal wear, and professional attire: each has representation in the pile.

"Weird," the blonde comments. "Half of this stuff can't possibly be theirs."

She quirks an eyebrow at Jamie.

"Stealing credit cards makes sense. But clothes that don't even fit you? That's kleptomaniac territory."

Jamie blinks blankly at her, a red wool cardigan in his hand. The light catches it, revealing an appliqued reindeer and an unfortunate abundance of shoulder pads. Suddenly, he's very thankful for his black shirt and jeans.

"Is this what passes for fashion in your world?"

Edited 2008-10-16 04:36 (UTC)

"Ewww, no!" Eleanor snorts.

"That had to belong to an old person. No-one under the age of seventy would voluntarily wear it." She drops the musty clothing she'd been investigating back onto the pile and nods sagely. "Possibly a novelty Christmas present, or a gift from a clueless grandma."

"It needs to be incinerated."

She plays the lamp around the rest of the shed, searching for any other oddities. On a nearby shelf a shoe box grabs her attention. It's less dusty than most of the other things in here, and not particularly weathered. Standing on her tip-toes, she flips the lid off and peers in.

"Woah! Check this out, AJ."

The carton is home to a hodge-podge of rings, necklaces, and other pieces of jewelry, as well as a number of watches and several different pairs of spectacles.

Coming up behind her, Jamie lets out a low whistle.

"You'd think their owners would alert the law." A frown. "If there's any law left."

A feasible explanation finally presents itself to Eleanor.

"Unless the owners aren't around any more," she postulates.

"Maybe our family are just scavengers. Or maybe people don't always escape the trees. The family dispose of the bodies somehow, but keep the personal effects."

She shrugs.

"There's nothing wrong with that."

"Maybe they expect others to come looking for them," he says, taking the suggestion a step further.

It's plausible. So why doesn't it feel right?

Jamie rubs his forehead, then looks up sharply at the muffled sound of a house door slamming.

In a low voice: "We should go."

He's suddenly exhausted.

Eleanor nods her agreement, on both counts. She's not totally satisfied either, but she puts the lid back on the box and quickly accompanies him out of the shed. Funny how that limp of hers doesn't seem to be much in evidence at the moment.

Soon enough the door is shut and they're innocently strolling again.

"Can we please go to bed now?" she asks.

She's tired too. But not so tired that she wants to go straight to sleep...

"That would be best," Jamie agrees, but there's a tightness around his mouth that wasn't there before.

His head is hurting again, in new and weird ways.

Slinging an arm around her shoulders, he walks the rest of the way without comment.