multiversallogs | on his Italian leather sofa

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on his Italian leather sofa

Who: Hellboy and OPEN!
What: Hellboy tries to get some stuff for his apartment, and maybe meets up with some people along the way.
Where: Furniture shops in the Aspic bazaar.
When: Coardi, 15 Shadri
Notes: Please note that this post is heavily backdated, because I meant to do it a long time ago but have been busy until recently.
Warnings: Not very likely.

Hellboy hadn't been living in his apartment for very long when the first creature invasion happened, and thus he hadn't had much time to make the place much of a home yet. He'd gone out for a week of mostly non-stop on-the-go monster-killing, and in the time he'd been away, crawlers had made their way up through his unsealed pipes and set about making a mess of his place. Luckily, he'd happened to close his bedroom door on his way out, so his bed was safe upon his return, but the one chair he'd gotten for his living room was a total loss.

It had taken a few days more to deal with the immediate aftermath -- clearing out the crawlers, cleaning up the mess, being interrogated by the Militia, taking part in a Hellsing celebratory barbecue -- but he'd finally managed to free up the time to do some shopping. He'd heard that the Aspic bazaar had a pretty wide variety of shops, so that's where he's wandering around, looking to see what catches his eye and enjoying the diversity of the populace milling about around him. At times, it almost feels like being a seven foot tall red-skinned demon man might be comparatively normal.

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Hellboy is indeed pretty memorable. Being also pretty social, he also knows he hasn't talked to Rachel before.

"Furniture!" he says, like it's a bit of an adventure, or at least a parody of same. "My apartment's pretty barren, and I've finally got a bit of time to do something about it."

"Furniture," Rachel echoes. "It's nice that you have your own place. I just got one myself, recently. Hey--there's a dude over near the other side of the marketplace that has decent stuff. I could show you?"

He considers for a moment, then shrugs a slouchy shrug. "Yeah, sure, thanks. I'll admit that my taste in decor doesn't extend much past the question of whether it can support my weight."

Just how much that weight is is probably apparent just from the size of him.

"Well, then this guy's stuff won't bother you. Reasonably priced if not terribly attractive. We can ask him about weight bearing? It's over this way."

She moves slowly through the crowd, not wanting another collision so soon after this near-miss. "Have you been in the city long?"

Hellboy follows along behind, the click-clack of his hooves swallowed up by the noise of the people around them. As they walk, he lights up a cigarette. For all his slope-shouldered bulk, he manages to thread himself through the crowd reasonably well.

"About... two and a half months, I think? I came in with the cohort's initial big batch of folks. You?"

"Yeah, me too." She glances up at him--he's remarkably tall, like so many of the other male cohort members she's met. She's really starting to think the city has a type when it comes to dudes. "I think I came toward the end of that first big wave but I was still part of it. Feels like so long ago now."

She pauses a moment, getting her bearings, and then she turns left, motioning for Hellboy to follow. "You didn't happen to be using or be near a door when you got brought here, did you?"

He nods, smoke puffing out of his mouth as he chuckles. "Someone on the network was polling on that, a while back. Yeah, I was walking out the door of the hostel I was staying at at the time. I don't know if it affects whatever you're thinking or not, but I was taken from another of these kidnap cities called Bete Noire, not directly from home."

"Hmm." Rachel frowns, digesting that bit of information. "I had a theory going a while back that people got here through doors, but it seems to be pretty hit-or-miss for that actually, like, being the case. But--Bete Noire. You're the second person I've met who came from there. What was it--you say it's another city like this one?"

"Yeah. Frequent, but not universal." He quietly puffs on his cigarette for a moment as he recalls his network conversation with Ianto Jones. "Last I bothered to count, there were maybe ten of us, give or take, who got taken from there. Bete Noire was much more of a run-down American big city craphole than this place. Bad lighting, lots of crumbling concrete, crime seemed pretty common. They also said it had some connections to sin and the apocalypse, but I wasn't really there long enough to have much experience with any of that."

"Sounds like a quality place. I wonder why this place grabbed so many of you from there, though? That's unusual. Did you all know each other there?"

She scans the area quickly, and then she gestures. "That way. He's down at the end of this little aisle, here."

He takes the corner and continues following. "My two theories were either that whoever's in charge wanted to front-load the cohort with experienced folks, or that there's an inter-city swap meet. Who the hell knows." He shrugs. "I only knew a few of them -- like I said, I hadn't been there long -- but a bunch of us had worked for Hellsing, which made things convenient when we got here."

"Hellsing. That's like--well, you guys aren't the police or anything, but kinda similar?" She's heard the name a few times by now and she wants to make sure she's got her facts straight. The more she knows, the more she has at her disposal, after all.

"I mean, from what I know, you guys help protect the people in the city from threats."

He makes a so-so gesture with the Right Hand. "The official title is 'The Guild of Battling Preternatural Horrors,' and that... kind of covers it, really. We occasionally work with the police, but we're closer to private paranormal investigators than monster cops. We've also got folks who help non-humans who're having trouble adapting to life in the city, whether it's dietary or some other thing."

"Oh!" That's good information to have. She's heard the name around the city, seen their broadcasts; she's glad to know exactly what they do. It could come in useful someday, considering where they are.

"I'm glad to hear that you guys help non-humans too, instead of just bashing their heads or whatever. We don't have a choice about being here. It'd suck to then be hunted or shot at or jailed or whatever on top of that."

Hellboy pulls up short and turns to face her. "Whoa, hey, hold on now. Let's be clear about something: We don't go chasing down non-humans just for being non-humans. I mean..." He gestures at his face, as though illustrating the point. "If Hellsing gets a call about someone -- or something, for that matter -- it's because whatever it is is causing problems for folks."

Rachel holds up her hands. "No, no, that's what I meant at all, sorry," she explains. "I'm sure you guys don't do that. I'm glad you're here, so that there's someone not doing that."

She pauses, choosing her next words carefully and delivering them in a slightly lowered voice. "I don't get the feeling the city as a whole can, like. Consistently be counted on for that. You know?"

"Oh. That." Now that he's got a better idea of what she's talking about, he finds it entertaining enough to not only chuckle, but also make the effort of giving her his slightly grotesque best attempt at a grin. Trying to keep his voice down as well -- no mean feat with a voice as gravelly as his -- he adds, "Well, I don't know how much they discriminate either. I'm more concerned with their response to emergencies. Or the lack thereof, as the case may be."

"That's a good concern to have," she admits, frowning. "We seem to go from emergency to emergency here. And the city itself always seems taken by surprise--I mean, from my point of view, anyway. It might be totally different, what you guys know and see."

He shakes his head. "Not particularly. Then again, I haven't been here any longer than you have. Maybe this crap just wasn't happening before we got here, or at least not as often."

Rachel's quiet a moment, thoughtful. "That's something to look into," she says. She looks up at Hellboy and explains, "I've been gathering some information on the city, and working with some other people on that. I hadn't thought to look into whether things like this happen all the time or not. But it's worth checking out."

Hellboy nods and continues walking. "Well, good luck with that. I'd say it should make an interesting paper, but you'd want to be careful. They seem to take a very keen interest in anything anyone publishes about the city."

"Oh, god, yeah," she agrees. "I can't say I'd be comfortable making it a public thing. That sounds like it's asking for trouble. --Down there, that's him, that space with all the odd-colored stuff, at the end. --For now I'm just trying to quietly gather information and see if we can get anything useful out of it."

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on his Italian leather sofa

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