Don't (Do?) Walk
Who: Sammy, and Buttahfly
When: Five p.m.
Where: The streets of Marquette,
The morning had been chilly, and it was still chilly now as Sammy wandered homeward from his trip to the store. The whole trip had been futile - they hadn't had what he wanted, which was a different type of feed for his ducklings, who were being checked over by a vet - but there was always the internet. He could order feed online, and hopefully it wouldn't take too long. Or something. And the walk itself had been nice - there hadn't been any rain, no vampire attacks, or any zombie attacks. No frog-sized hail. No fire and brimstone, either, or whatever might decide to hit Marquette next. Yeah, it was nice.
Not really watching where he was going for once, Sammy crossed a road without looking and continued on down the sidewalk. The first time he did it, it was fine. But the second time, as he crossed the next street, he had to go back-stepping quickly to avoid a car who showed no intention of stopping. Sammy almost reached up to cover his ears as the driver honked loudly before continuing on down the street. So, maybe he should watch where he walked. Even if he did have a "Walk" signal.
..
Buttahfly had been wandering around the town, trying to quell the restless feeling in her stomach. Her wounds were healing, though too slow for her tastes. She'd wanted to jump back into the fight before the vampires skipped town, but putting Socko at risk that way just couldn't be done. She'd been compromised, and she could put her own ass on the line, but not anyone else's. But now they were gone, and she couldn't sit inside anymore. So. Walking. In a half-assed sort of patrol. She had one of her man's big hoodies on over tight jeans, to hide the lumps of her bandages and the weapons tucked into her waistband.
Her thoughts were elsewhere until she was approaching an intersection and saw a young-looking guy hop backwards to avoid getting creamed. She scowled and felt her New York bubble up out of her. "Hey!" she practically screamed after the car, turning to watch it go. "Watch what th'fuck you're doin'!" She was positive they'd heard at least some of it, as taillights flashed, but whoever the motherfucker was, they continued on. Frowning, Bu turned her attention back to the kid. "You okay?" she asked, in a much more civil tone.
--
When Buttahfly had first started yelling at the car who'd nearly taken him down, Sammy had been reaching for his notebook, pulling it free of the confines of his messenger bag. So, when she asked him if he was alright, he was able to answer easily enough without having to go fumbling for pen and paper like he did have to so often.
"A'ight, yeah," He nodded, looking over at the woman, shrugging. "I thought that the 'walk' signal meant you could walk, but who knows. Maybe the man's from some country where that isn't the case?" It wasn't likely, or all too real a possibility, but...there was a very, very small chance that that was what it was. Right. "Thanks for yelling at him, though, since I can't really do that. If we were in a bigger town I'd throw something at the car, but...yeah, thanks." Was that all? Yep. That was all. Sammy turned the notebook towards Bu.
..
The notebook and jotting confused Bu for a moment, but she caught on quick enough that the kid had a talking problem. So she waited, and skimmed her eyes over what he'd written once she could see it. She looked back up at him with a very faint smirk. "Think more likely he's jus' a dickhead who's gonna get his ass sued some day," she said, making a bit of a nose-wrinkled face. "Or he from New York. You gotta watch yourself over there, babydoll. Walk don't mean much in the Bronx neither." She was already thinking he was rather adorable, in that way that looked so young to her now. Even though she probably didn't have more than five or six years on him, at the most. Everything was just going so fast.
--
He grinned crookedly at her and her calling him 'babydoll' - he hadn't gotten called that since they'd moved. He kind of missed it, people here didn't really go in for the pet-names-for-people-just-met type thing. Sammy scrubbed a hand through his curls quickly. "Don't..." She talked like the girls he befriended (or who befriended him) back home. Well, old home. "...doesn't mean much in Chicago or its suburbs, neither, really." Now the light had switched over from 'Walk' to 'Don't Walk' and so he wasn't making any move to cross the street - one time nearly getting hit in a day was enough for him, he wasn't all that ready to attempt it again so soon. "It's the one thing I always forget to pay attention to, though."
..
She read it, then flashed him a grin. "You a former big-city boy then, yeah? Lotta transplants in this town, I been noticin'. My boy's from Detroit, I met some others from other places ... " She shrugged a shoulder. It was just that crazy way Marquette had of attracting people. And keeping them. Like some big fucked up Venus flytrap. Which kind of made it sad that this cute kid had landed here. On the surface at least, because if there was one thing she knew, it was that you never knew about people. Hadn't that guy at the festival thing said he had a little brother? Geo? "Town this size, you'd think people'd watch better, but looks like you got the luck of th' asshole-draw on that one." She nodded toward the intersection, then paused, narrowing one eye a little bit. "You said Chicago suburb? You got a brother, sugar?"
--
Sammy straightened a little, looking out of the corner of his eye at her carefully as he debated inching away from her. But she hadn't said anything threatening, and she didn't, like, give off a creepy-supernatural scent (though that wasn't saying anything, neither did Helen). With those two thoughts - ignoring his own little addendum to the second - he stayed his feet and slowly let himself relax again. She seemed nice, and he was going to give her the benefit of the doubt - especially since Geo had very likely talked to her. And, again, she didn't smell threatening. Score one for Buttahfly. "Skokie, if you want specifics. And yeah, got a brother. Geo. You met him?" If she had, was this another person he'd have to tell about eye-loss? Ehhhn...
..
Bu let out a delighted laugh and clapped her hands together once in a pleased kind of way. She hadn't missed the tensing, and really she couldn't blame him for it. Paranoia was healthy around here, to a certain extent. "Yeah, I met him. Little ways back." After the kids had died. And he'd said he'd been from Skokie, and he had a younger brother, and he knew about things, and he'd used some phrase that had stuck out ... ignoring the raven, that had been it. It'd caught her attention, and now this skinny lil white boy in front of her was a hell of a lot more interesting. "An' he tole me your name, but I slept a few times since then, honey, refresh me? How're ya'll doin' anyway?"
--
Did that mean she'd forgotten his name, then? That was sure what it seemed to imply, anyhow, and that was just fine. People with real good memories sometimes made him nervous, and so someone who forgot his name? They were alright in his book. He didn't mind it. "It's Sammy." He tipped his head to the side, studying her and subtly taking in more of her scent, registering what was naturally hers, and what was alien and not hers. Like the smell of bandages - not bandaids, but bandages. And something else. He sneezed, then looked back at his notebook. So, was she one of the people injured by the Archerus vampires, then? Bad, but good, because it meant she'd survived. But she'd asked a question, so now he'd be answering it. "A'ight. Kinda of." Except very not. "Things got messed up when the bad stuff was happening."
..
Sammy, that was right. Sammy and Geo, brothers from Skokie. She read his note and was a little concerned with the emphasis. Through the vampire disaster, she'd had Geo in the back of her mind, hoping that he'd been smart and gotten the hell out of dodge for a while with the others. He hadn't used her number, at least, and so she'd been hoping that meant he was out of it and not the other options, which was fending for himself or dead. "Yeah, s'pretty fucked," she agreed, looking at Sammy again with a keen eye. "Everybody okay?"
--
He made a choked noise - this one, miserable type noise was the one noise he could make. It conveyed how he felt perfectly as he scrubbed his hand through his curls again, watching as the light turned from 'Walk' to 'Don't Walk' again. He'd missed his chance to walk. Again. The thought, though, was pushed from his mind as he pulled his hair back a little to show the scabby gouges before dropping his curls back again. It was kind of a good thing he'd taken his cornrows out - his curls hid the gouges better. "Just, like, a visual ref. Those are nothin' compared to wha'..." No, no pussy-footing. "He can't see from his left eye."
..
Buttahfly's eyebrows drew together as she saw the wounds. She wasn't a squeamish girl by nature, but she always hated seeing those on younger kids. Which y'know, he probably wasn't a kid, but still. And then there was the note. Which made her own healing wounds seem like not much at all. She'd been hurt plenty in her time, but she didn't know what she'd do if she lost any level of functionality. "Oh sugar," Bu said quietly, looking entirely sympathetic. "I'm so sorry." There was that inkling again, though, because they'd obviously faced off with the bastards, and they were both still alive. That meant something, she'd fought the Acherus, she knew. She half felt like hugging Sammy, he looked so uncomfortable and un-good, but there might be a twitch there, so she didn't. "Can you tell 'im I wanna hear from 'im? If he feels like it?" she asked. "I gave 'im my number, but if y'wanna write it down again ..."
--
Her scent was honestly sympethetic, not that fake-sympathetic that you got from some people. It was nice, Sammy decided, as he tore off a piece of paper from the back of his notebook and handed it to her. "He...might have lost it." He eyed her critically, then shook his head, curls bobbing. "But somehow I doubt it." If she'd given Geo her number, Geo most likely hadn't lost it. For quite a number of reasons - one being that he didn't lose contacts. "But in case, you can write it 'gain. I'll tell him you want to hear from him. He's probably getting tired of just talking to me all the time anyhow." Sammy hoped he wasn't, but it was possible. "I'll tell him...s' long as you promise not to get on his case about, like, not staying inside. He's had that enough, you know?" He figured she did, but still, better safe than sorry. ...and wasn't that ironic?
..
Bu dug into the big pocket of the hoodie and came up with a Sharpie. There was really all kinds of stuff stashed in there. She braced the paper against one thigh and jotted her cell number down again, and wrote 'Buttah -- call me' above it, then handed it back to Sammy with a faintly sad smile. She could appreciate him looking out for his brother not getting bitched out. "Won't do no good now t'get on 'im," she told him. "Plus, I ain't got much room t'talk. Got my own ass tore up a lil. So, promise. ... you can keep that too, if y'want it," she said, gesturing at the paper with her number on it. Why they inspired her protective instincts to kick up, she wasn't sure, but there it was. And he seemed like a good kid. Young man.
--
"If he turns out to have the paper still, I will," Sammy promised, folding it up once the Sharpie ink had dried and would no longer smudge and sticking it into is messenger bag pocket where it couldn't get mixed up with all his homework and journal papers. Without really thinking about what he was saying he waved a her with his non-pen-holding hand. "And yeah, could smell the bandages." After he'd written it, it hit him just what he'd wrote and he went to cross it out, but stopped. She was worried, and if she'd gotten hurt, she'd probably been fighting the Archerus, too. He might not go further on just what that meant, but...he wasn't going to go crossing over it, either. "You'd have to go beating yourself up about it, too, wouldn't you?" Sammy had stuck to simply beating himself up about it, not Geo. It worked better.
..
Bu arched an eyebrow at the smelling of bandages comment. She was beginning to think more and more that these guys were weres of some description. She didn't know of much else that could scent things so easily, aside from some demons. And she was fairly certain they didn't fall into that particular category. "Yeah, I would," she answered with a small smile. "S'my job, but I try not to be a hypocrite 'bout it, y'know?" She didn't ask about the smelling. Not everybody had to cough up their secrets immediately. It wasn't smart. "Marquette needed all th' help it could get, anyways. An' I wrote it on his hand, so he might not have it anymore. I'm hopin' s'quiet now for a while, but ya'll need any help or backup or somethin' ... I'm around, 'kay?" She glanced up as the sign ticked back to 'Walk'.
--
Sammy could have just hugged her for not asking about the scent thing, seriously. But he didn't - they'd just met, not to mention he didn't know where she had been hurt. Instead he just grinned at her widely - she could guess that the grin was for that, or she could assume he was grinning for the sake of grinning. Either way was fine by him - either way definitely worked. "Quiet would be nice. And we ever need help or somethin' we'll - well, Geo will - call you. Now I need to go find, like, wood to knock on. And get across the street 'fore the light changes again." That said he tipped an imaginary hat - checked the street for oncoming cars - and darted across. Already he was thinking about possible totems for Buttahfly.
..
Bu craned her neck to watch him go, and thankfully there wasn't anybody around to run him down or anything. Chuckling faintly to herself, she turned and started back the way she'd come. Now that she'd given her number out to people and stuff, she should probably actually start carrying her phone. That, and it was around time for her man to get back home from trolling the campus. She was keen on dinner. And now hearing from the possibly-a-shifter older brother.