where fast the Arctic nights set in

[perfectcameo]

Who: Logan, Laura Kinney, Njoki Rainmaker, and some other people probably. Not all at the same time.
What: Existing in Baedal once an obvious exit sign has since not been found.
Where: Various!
Warnings: Swearing, so we can get an Oscar.

Shaking the cage of people in his same predicament, turns out, isn't as engaging as he had hoped. He doesn't like the CiD, it fits wrong in his hand, he feels like he could shatter it if he draws tendon and bone tight in a fist, and its mechanisms feel too small for his fingers. But eventually, he sends off a text message, some delayed and somewhat grudging.

could use that beer

He misses traffic, too. Cars don't spook so easily and he can live out of a truck.

There is a time after dusk that he picks up a scent, and follows it all the way into the Spatters. He'd been looking for it before and despite the waning hour, because a little darkness never killed nobody, and he had to know.

The evenings he isn't working in the gambling dens, with cards and fists both, to make his way are spent in hibernation on uncomfortable mattresses with a roof over his head. Daylight holds as many bar interiors as the evening. It isn't like useless, purposeless roaming never suited him before.

It just chafes, this time around.

[ OOC: See comments for some thread starters, both open and closed, otherwise make your own! ]

Comments

[23rd]

"Who is Stryker in your universe?" She guesses he likely still had some involvement in the Weapon X project, but Logan's unfamiliarity with him indicates he may not have the same highly public persona he does on Earth 616 -- Stryker isn't quite a celebrity per se, but people do tend to know of him as 'that one televangelist nut' the same way they know, say, Ted Haggard.

She's curious. He murdered a lot of her friends and is indirectly responsible for her existence by being directly responsible for his.

[perfectcameo]

"A dick."

So, same difference. It's sort of said with a tone that implies that casually calling him names is too good for him, made somewhat more solid when he adds; "And dead." Or so Logan assumes. Jean didn't survive the flood, so why would Stryker? The backs of his knuckles scratch the underside of his jaw, an uncomfortable fidget. "Never saw him on TV; government had enough assholes for that job.

"He was, uh. A scientist for the military, did experimentation on mutants, including his own kid, and in the end, he tried his hand at mass genocide. How he ties in with me, well, all I know is what he had to say, and desperate men talk a lot of bullshit. But he was in the business of brainwashing mutants to carry out his orders, and before that, I guess there's me."

Whatever that was supposed to be. "I don't remember," he reiterates gruffly, for those playing at home.

[23rd]

Experience has taught Laura to never write someone off as dead until there's a body, and even then, to still be prepared for their eventual return. There's a reason they call death the revolving door, where she's from. She says nothing more on the subject of Stryker except for a mild grunt that's much more Wolverine than most of her other mannerisms thus far -- there are probably more of those, but they manifest so oddly in her. (Seeing her smoke a stogie is pretty surreal.)

After a moment, she says, "You will." It's meant to be comforting, but Laura is just... not good at that, so it comes out more awkward. It is, at least, not an empty platitude: the one she knows remembered, eventually. It's unlikely that this one never will.

She almost wishes she could forget.

[perfectcameo]

It isn't. Comforting. And the crooked half-smile that comes of it is not because Logan feels comforted. "I'm not sure I want to. The fragments that I do remember sometimes weren't exactly a picnic.

"Besides. I have this place now."

He sounds incredibly unenthusiastic. "No Stryker, no... Weapon X." No Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters. "No one to hold responsible." It's about then that he realises he is talking too much, to a girl who was doing something useful before he showed up. He stops when he does and glances at her, away, and slows his walking as if to allow her to detach and go off on her own.

"You should, uh. Let me know if you want help out here. 'Want' bein' the operative word, because it doesn't sound like you need it." The qualifier is less to pander to her ego and more to circumvent precise correction.

Not that she might not get it anyway, occasionally, but it's polite to ask.

[23rd]

Baedal does have that effect on people.

Laura makes a gesture like an aborted shrug; if it seems unnatural on her, it's because it is. She's not used to utilising body language the way normal people are, it's something she had to be taught. A Logan who doesn't remember who he is is probably not the best choice when it comes to sniffing out Candlelighter and Militia business, which is largely what Laura does in the Spatters, and when it comes to dealing with the petty (and not so petty) crime down here that is her lesser priority, she definitely does not need help.

Still, she does actually recognise the offer for what it is. She doesn't say anything -- the I don't need your help hangs clearly in the air, but not saying it is her way of holding out a white flag -- just before she swings up the fire escape of the nearest building and disappears that way, unceremoniously. She doesn't do goodbyes under the best circumstances, and he'll know where to find her if he wants to.

She's the only one in the city who smells like him.