You can have my girl, but don't touch my hat [OPEN]

[toooldforlosing]

Who: Raylan Givens AND YOU
What: Out and about! Let me know where you're running into him.
Where: Mog Hill, mainly, and the environs.
When: All day Coardi
Notes: Despite his inner rage, he'll be friendly and polite enough to new (and old) acquaintances. Feel free to assume he's doing any of the things mentioned below, but if you want him for other plots, just hit me by PM or on plurk (prettiestwhistles)
Warnings: None for now

Raylan is angry. There are some who might argue Baedal has nothing to do with that, but it's different here than it was at home. He's a prisoner, even if his prison is city-sized. Even if he's free to run every morning (like he does) and go to the bar every night (...which he usually does too, though more for eavesdropping and brooding than to get properly drunk). Working for the sheriff feels like collusion, but at least Norrington hasn't asked him to do anything he can't do, so far.

The militia's broadcast had turned his stomach, but he doesn't know whose brain to put a bullet into for that. A criminal, even a band of criminals... you can fight that, he thinks. A corrupt government that rules by martial law - that's something else again.

So he gets up, goes for a run, works his beat, goes shopping for goddamn groceries, spends his evenings in bars, and bites down on how much this place rubs him wrong.

He thinks he'd best not get questioned by the militia again, because he doesn't know if he'll be able to keep his mouth shut. But even those who don't know him well might be able to identify a man with an itchy trigger finger.

Comments

[toooldforlosing]

"Well, I guess it's real enough, it's just bizarre." He wants to ask why regular fruit would be so unusual, but doesn't; city rules are what they are, and everyone needs privacy (or at least the illusion) until they volunteer to give it up.

"This stuff taste fine, but banana splits are hard to come by."

[charismatic]

Will grabs a couple more random things, shaking his head. Aside from the weirdness of not recognizing everything he's eating, switching back to real food from space rations has been a tiny shock in the overall process of trying to adjust to... everything. “No ice cream?” he asks.

[toooldforlosing]

"Easier to find ice cream than bananas, weirdly enough." Enough ex-pats with a taste for the former, Raylan guesses. "I mean, I'm not willing to swear it's made with all the same ingredients you'd expect, but..."

[charismatic]

“Tastes the same is good enough,” Will agrees. He finally finds some apples – or apple-like fruit, he has no idea - and reaches over for them. “I'm used to – well, was used to – synthesized foods, mostly. A lot of it didn't really taste right, but I never knew the difference until I got a chance to taste the real thing.”

[toooldforlosing]

"That sounds pretty terrible, if you don't mind the comment." He's still, after all this time, not quite used to people coming from places and times so different from his own.

[charismatic]

“Oh, it was awful,” Will agrees. It definitely wasn't the main reason for the space colonies to rebel, but it was part of the larger problem of resource availability. His stomach had been upset the entire first month, after he went back up to space. “It looks like everything they have here is natural, though.” So far as he's seen, anyway, and that isn't really all that much, yet.

[toooldforlosing]

"For most definitions." He didn't think Baedal was growing its food in labs, for the most part, no. "Solid enough, at least."

[charismatic]

“Point,” Will says, looking down into his basket. “I'm Will, by the way,” he adds, looking back up and offering a hand to shake. He should probably not get so used to talking to random people that he starts forgetting to introduce himself.

[toooldforlosing]

"Raylan." His handshake is firm, dominant without being over-aggressive. (It's hard to turn the law-enforcement training off. Civilians need to feels safe, criminals need to feel threatened, etc.)

"Hope you don't hate the stuff I advised; I'd feel like I led you astary."

[charismatic]

“Nah,” Will says, after he lets go. Lot's of folks around here with business-end handshakes, it seems like. He's not really surprised, at least half because it doesn't make sense to be surprised, in this situation. “I'm not picky. Raised on synthetic space food, and all that.”

[toooldforlosing]

"Jesus. You sound like a man who needs fried chicken yesterday," he says, easily. Of course, everyone probably needs fried chicken at some point, in Raylan's worldview.

[charismatic]

“I've had that once or twice,” Will says, grinning. “The real stuff, even. The fake stuff was everywhere up in space, but it wasn't very good.” None of it was very good, that's besides the point. It was edible and probably more nutritious than the real thing.

[toooldforlosing]

"Christ, fake fried chicken. That's a future I'd skip," he says, with a laugh.

[charismatic]

“It's got its problems,” Will says agreeably. He'd still rather be there than here. At least he knows what's going on, there. “Where are you from?” He's not sure if that's impolite, yet, but oh well. He's curious.

[toooldforlosing]

"Kentucky," he says, after the slightest of pauses. He's run from it before, but it's always been true. "2011. Earth? How specific you need?"

[charismatic]

“No, that works,” Will says, and it's his turn to laugh now. He's not sure when 2011 was, in terms of the calendar he's used to – he was a terrible history student blah blah blah – but he figures it's before Earth ran out of fossil fuels and everything went to shit and got restructured. “I'm from – well, space, but orbital space. So, basically Earth. But a Earth at least several hundred years head of yours, I guess.” He thinks that's how Wolfgang described it. “Kentucky still exists, though.”

[toooldforlosing]

"Does it really? Well, good for Kentucky." Given that it had been stripped mined for cola as long as it had. "Not the most glamorous place, but I guess there are worse."

...Baedal, for one, but he doesn't say that on a public street.

[charismatic]

Will wouldn't disagree with that, if he did.

“Space, for one,” he says, and his tone is light but he's not joking so much about that, either. He's not sure what Raylan's Kentucky was like, and there are still plenty of places on Earth where things aren't great. But there's a reason the poor migrate to space, and multiple reasons why the colonies are fighting for independence now. He doubt's anyone here is too interested in that, though. “Most places still have their own states or territories or provinces, I guess. But most things are done though the nation feds. The United States is part of the Trans-Pacific Union.” He's not sure if anyone cares about that, either, but talking about home is kind of nice.

[toooldforlosing]

Raylan tends to let people talk; it's a good way to learn things that may or may not be of use, and it usually puts the other person at ease. "So how do your people end up in space, if it's not rude to ask?"

[charismatic]

“We use solar energy, mostly,” Will says. “So that's why it started. But everything is cheaper in space because it's artificial or not as nice, so.” He shrugs. He figures it's self-explanatory after that.

[toooldforlosing]

"Yeah - artificial already cheaper with some things, back home." He supposes it makes an odd sort of sense. "This place must've been an adjustment."

[charismatic]

“Oh, yeah,” Will says, smile appearing again. “Pretty sure I gave a bunch of people a nice laugh when I showed up.”

[toooldforlosing]

"There are worse ways to show up." Bleeding from a torso wound among them!

"How long ago was that?"

[charismatic]

“A little under two weeks ago,” Will says. “Ten days.” The words are all different, but they have seven days here, too. He uses his free hand to brush his shoulder off. “Still shiny.” Granted, wearing his flight suit helps with that a little, in the literal sense.

[toooldforlosing]

Raylan smiles, wryly. "Fair enough. Well. You've got time to learn the fruit, still."