[ closed ] and if i swallow anything evil

[lyingheart]

WHO: Annie Leonhart & Will Graham (& Gunther, but no Sunshine Girls)
WHERE: Bait Shop.
WHEN: Prior to the Paintball Game, probably a weekend or two earlier.
WHAT: Annie and Will meet for the first time for doggie play dates (can you do that with just one dog) and swim tips.
WARNINGS: Potential spoilers, dark imagery, horrible puns, look just turn away abandon faith ye who enter here.

Annie checked the name of the street sign pointed down a crooked street, looking back down to the physical map she had in hand. She knew there were maps in the communicator, but knowing was different than making use of that same technology. A paper map in hand is luxury enough. Glancing up at the address on the building she stood across from, she turned left, walking on.

A bait shop. There were all sorts of indelicate subject matters to tackle, following what she'd read on network over the last few weeks, and how she parsed what'd been happening. Murders. Murderer. No one from Will's world has come recommended, highly or otherwise. She'd been warned against Gideon and Chilton most obviously, including by both men, seeking to insult the other; now a different woman, recognizing Will, decrying him and securing his place among the worst elements of the scum people didn't recognize as humanity. The monsters. The ones you didn't forgive.

There was a hook there, and Annie felt its barbs with careful fingers, knowing to believe something fully either way was to skewer herself prematurely. She won't bite until she knows more about the shape of things. She'd nibble, testing the waters, seeing how much play there was on the line.

Have fun. This is Gunther. Murderer. One good stroke.

Snippets of conversations, written and spoken, that flit through her mind, categorized and tucked away for later examination. Annie was fully aware and observant as she made her quiet way forward, pausing outside when she found the place, squinting as she took in the surroundings.

I wonder how long it takes to drown.

Tucking her map away, Annie stepped forward, crossing the road. Her entrance is quiet, unremarkable, much like her attire. She was simply there at the threshold, viewing a screen, looking through to the heart of one man's alleged darkness.

A bait shop. Bait and switch? It doesn't feel likely, but she's forever suspicious of what things may come. She's needed to be that way for so long, she wasn't sure how to stop. It reminded her of a children's story she heard at the library in Nonah, kids seated in a semi-circle around an older woman who'd changed her voice for every character in the tale. Three little pigs, one big bad wolf. Houses made of anything less than brick and mortar and stone collapsing under pressure. Being eaten whole, just like that. The third pig who outlives them all.

She raised her hand to knock on the outside frame.

"Will?" Little pig, little pig, let me come in. "Are you there?"

Not by the hairs of my chinny-chin-chin.

Comments

[infomodder]

Gideon and Chilton naming each other as they had was what originally drew Will to reply himself. It had been an interesting read—oh yes, he read and listened and saw everything, which he knew was not obsession but also knew it could be seen s such—and had only gotten more interesting when he'd actually spoken to Annie at length. The more he heard of her world, her home, the less idea he had of what to make of it. Unusual case, his talents considered. He'd mulled it over, tried to make some sense of it, filed it away for later the same as he'd done with most everything else in that ridiculously vast memory of his which had the misfortune of disappearing when he needed it the most. That was no longer an issue.

Why would I be afraid of you? Who could you possibly hurt? Soothing words, helpful words, but then followed with ones he didn't like but needed to remember, no matter how much it made his gut lurch. Did you hunt or did you fish? I don't, personally, but I know how to fish, and technically how to hunt. I wouldn't think I'm any good at it. Christ Almighty, he'd dreamed of teaching Abigail to fish, dreamed of standing next to her in fresh water and doing what he had been unable to do before, and here he had that opportunity splashed in his face. Annie was no Abigail, not by a long stretch of the imagination, because no one else could be Abigail Hobbs. He recognized the similarities there and rationalized them away with the fact that Annie had so little experience with animals in general, how could he refuse a lesson in marine creatures after she hadn't even known what a seal was but been capable of picking up on the cruelty behind caging the exotic for people to watch while it starved for everything it had been born to do, when the world it should have been a part of was taken away for entertainment?

The monsters. The ones that would not be forgiven. He knew them well, and he knew well enough he wasn't anything like them. Monsters might have jokingly asked forgiveness from their prey, but they never thought of anyone forgiving them or needing forgiveness. They didn't want it. Will didn't know what he'd done that needed forgiving; he knew very well that no matter how many people might have forgiven him whether he asked for it or not, he'd never forgive himself.

Doing something monstrous didn't make a monster.

This was not bait and switch. That would imply that Will had presented himself as something good. He'd presented himself as what he was, even before a few crimes were made public. Whether that was taken as good wasn't something he considered. He'd just been him.

Pigs, not people, killed in threes. Sometimes fours. No pig outlived that, even if they survived without vital organs due to a mind filled with surgical knowledge. That was not Will, even if he wasn't entirely good. That would never be Will, not by the hairs of his chinny-chin-chin.

He'd been waiting and rationalizing the entire thing, Gunther sprawled out on his back behind the counter. That knock was enough to spring him out of it, but his training was enough to prevent him crossing a line made of tape. The most he could do was stick his head out. Will did the same without realizing it, looking out from a room full of live bait with the same sort of expression on his face. Dog and master, master and dog, one with control but for the good of the other, one providing the other with what he'd never get from people, reflected in a brief, perhaps comical moment. Gunther stayed in place, pointed in her direction as if Will couldn't see her himself, did his job while Will moved past rows of tacky shirts and hats, displays of various small parts needed to fix anything that could go wrong with a rod, trying his hardest to smile without it seeming like a strained thing that should have been put out of its misery before it ever had a chance to form.

He managed it for all of two seconds before he opened the door, dressed in plaid and jeans that weren't made to fit him exactly, a hideous hat atop a messy head of hair that he wore for business. Wearing it was promoting it to those who might never have looked up at the tacky hats above the counter. It was rare he wore a woman's hat, but he had so many in stock he couldn't ignore that he needed to get them moving out of the shop as fast as possible.

So he wore it, dealt with comments, sold it, and everything worked out. One of his better designs.

"Didn't have any problems finding it, did you?" he asked, flipping the OPEN sign over so it displayed CLOSED, not locking it because of all the mess that could make it a terrible move, and trying for another smile as he gestured to the dog still staring Annie down like he was ready to either bark or pounce. "He's. Pointing. In his nature. You can touch him. He's not violent."

Neither was Will.

Oh, you dear children, who has brought you here? Do come in, and stay with me. No harm shall happen to you.

[lyingheart]

A splash in the face from careful, careful feet. Annie wades through still waters with all the knowledge of each ripple she causes, but not the understanding of how far they reach. She steps carefully knowing she can't see the depths of what lies before her, but not aware of just how deep those waters dive. There is a sinkhole fit to swallow the world just a few feet further out. One wrong step, one poorly chosen direction, and she'll fall right below the surface.

One good stroke isn't enough to save her when the bottom truly drops out. She'll need every trick in the book to keep herself from drowning then.

Tell me the things I don't understand. She asked questions, unending and not always comprehending, trying to take in the impossible vastness of cultures and worlds that operated in ways she barely understood. It has led to mistakes, but led to more discoveries too, and she moved forward for each of those discoveries.

Failures are learning experiences too. If her father taught her nothing else, he taught her there was no giving up. There were no breaks. There was enduring everything, for whatever else may come.

For the dreams and nightmares sure to follow.

For the murder of four young women. A man who had worked profiling the criminally insane. A man and his dog; a man and his ridiculous, absolutely ludicrous hat.

She blinked, looking up, noting the turn of the sign with a sideways look, away from the hat on his head. Reel women fish. She can appreciate the pun, as barefaced and unapologetic as it was.

Doing something monstrous might not make a monster, but it didn't forgive someone for being monstrous when they know it will bring suffering. When they move after a goal they don't understand, for a purpose that makes no sense to them. Dedicate a life toward following those goals because a father said one day, Your training starts now.

She looked past Will and his hat, eyes adjusting to the dark that hid little more than a man, his dog, and the contents of a store designed for those who spent their time casting lines into dark, unseen waters.

The world's not black and white. Hero and villain.

She stepped past Will, careful of personal space, even as she herself doesn't care to the same degree of someone raised in the United States.

"Is he friendly?" She asked, already walking toward the dog, eyes on him, then the surroundings, never quite alighting on the dog for more than a few seconds at a time. Indirectly reassuring; like with a horse, aware and present, but inviting the attention of a herdmate, not staring one down.

Not the principles one applied to canines. Cautious, careful ones, but ill matched to where it was she walked now.

[infomodder]

To fall below the surface wasn't always a death sentence. Alone over a frozen lake, it very well could be. The hole might freeze over. If not, getting out didn't equal survival. Those who didn't ask questions about how to handle disaster before they went ice fishing without a single stroke in their arsenal could be considered stupid, but still tragic. Someone who desired a good time and ended up never having another one because of ignorance or carelessness. Because of thinking themselves invincible. Because of weather being weather and not taken into account.

When the bottom truly drops out, being alone could be the biggest offender to drowning. A friend (or something like it) with a paddle. A friend who would do anything to save, never stopping to think that they could end up just as ruined because they knew exactly what to do. Will had that happen. He'd had that friend. He had yet to realize the friend who offered to pull him out of that water was the one who pushed him under in the first place. Pushed and held him by his throat and smiled the entire time.

He could never be as cultured and elegant and knowledgeable as Hannibal Lecter. Nor could he be as good a person, even if Will wouldn't call him that without prompting. He'd never be anyone's rock. But Goddamnit, he wouldn't let anyone drown if he could help it, even if his relationship with the one flailing was almost pure hate.

Questions were welcome. He'd answer as best he could. If he had to explain phrases he'd used his entire life, world known, he'd do it. Better to explain types of fish or seasons or holidays than four young women. How did he explain that to a young woman so much nearer the ages of three of those victims than Skye? He'd rather not.

He could explain anything else. Would steer the topic if feasible.

Rare to find a barefaced monster. Unapologetic? Much more common. He may not have been a monster, but his shop was filled with tacky near-garbage, he knew it, he put it there, and he made no attempt to hide it. The only monster in Hook, Line, & Tinker might have been a good chunk of the merchandise, even when Annie finally stepped in. Black and white was so extreme. Gray and gray and dog and punny, stupid shirts. Better?

"Yeah, he's Tame. Harmless." Almost harmless, his nature taken into account. Every move she made, the sound of her voice, her clothes, all of it was soaked up like a sponge. He couldn't help it, and fighting it made him more aware of talk about him he didn't want to deal with, so he just...did his thing. She had little idea of how to deal with dogs. That much was impossible to miss. Invitation over intimidation. Equality over dominance. This was possibly a better idea than he'd realized. "Don't have to wait for him to sniff your hand. Scratch ears or pet back and neck or...whatever you feel like. He'll be just fine with it."

Just fine with it because Will has vouched for her, was vouching for her by letting her get anywhere near him. Just fine with it because the dog knows full well that Will would never let him get hurt, Will being parent and sibling and friend (and savior, but he ignored that one). He'd never watch as someone dangerous got near him. He was safe. It was safe. This was all safe. Will snapped his fingers loud enough for Gunther to know that he was allowed to cross the line and investigate the new person, which he did with a wagging tail and tongue that would not stop pushing his mustache around. Excited. Interested. Invitation instead of submission.

He could tell a lot from the way a dog took to a person. Easier to watch dog and human (humanoid?) interact than deal with it himself.

Will would be an enormous liar if he refused to fess up that he used his dogs as lures the same way he used the ones he handcrafted. He would never toss them into dark, unseen waters.

Lures didn't love him back. They didn't cry if they got bent. They didn't eat or drink or crap all over the porch when it rained because they hated getting wet. And they sure as hell did not protect him the same way his dogs would.

Nor did they smile when people stopped by, but damned if his furry lure wasn't doing as much as he waited to see if she'd give him a proper rubdown and he could get away with licking her face off.

(He couldn't. Will wouldn't let him.)

((Not for very long. Spoiled brat.))

[lyingheart]

Nothing with teeth was harmless. Annie didn't listen to the particulars of what Will said, instead accepting an overall meaning. The dog is harmless because he's made it so, until it's not. Gunther is trained, at least ready to wait for orders, and she can understand and respect that impulse to listen and follow. Not as much the desire to please, and she suspects that might be the case with the dog. She couldn't say she'd been eager to please her father. There had been so little recourse in pleasing him as she did.

He said she didn't need to wait. She reaches out, running her fingers through the fur over his head, down his neck, breaking off at his shoulders. There's that tongue, and she stayed out of range, allowing Gunther his curiosity, but always turning, sidestepping, placing a hand on his head or scratching at his ears and providing the distraction paired with her own movements that kept him down and away from her face. Leap up, be redirected - Annie wasn't letting anything come at her head on.

"Hello, Gunther."

She doled out scratches that remember horses more than they remember mustached dogs, and she doesn't smile - she very rarely allows herself to smile - but her energy doesn't pull at Gunther. There's no negativity, and for all her refusal to engage, she didn't hate the attention. She didn't know what to do with it, other than to try and keep the dog down.

Annie spoke in small sounds and clucks and kisses, once again the way one might with a horse, but adaptive, watching and learning based on how Gunther interacts with her. She listened for Will all the while, her attention divided between him and the dog. What she jostles in the meantime became secondary, tacky merchandise or not. Ostensibly, she was here to meet a dog.

Not to question accusations made by people seeking out monsters to explain the monstrous things they've seen in their lives.

"He's smaller than I imagined." Evidenced as once seen on camera, it seemed like such a minor point. For once being smaller and less involved... or is it that life grows larger the more it became something directly interfaced with? The picture expands until it fills the screen, and you learn all over again how the world can be so large and so small all at once.

Perspective. It's what she needs. It's why she really came in the end.

"The accusations being made on the communicator... why is it you were convicted of those murders?"

Scratches behind ears. Good dog. Good boy. No change from Annie. No unease, no accusation. Curiosity, and a steadiness that any animal could feel. There's no emotional attachment to leave her off even keel.

[infomodder]

Leaning against the counter, Will watched the two of them carefully in case he needed to speak up or step in. Gunther might overstep a boundary or do something she wasn't familiar with, might overwhelm her with enthusiasm, confuse, spook...possibilities were endless for what the dog could do to someone who wasn't used to them. He had no idea what Annie was capable of, but he highly doubted she'd do anything harmful right in front of him. A learning lesson for the two of them on how to interact, a learning lesson for Will on what influence he would need to exercise on Gunther later and how Annie operated with an inferior.

If she spoke up about the dog's behavior, he'd step in. If something got too physical on Gunther's in, he'd step in. He wouldn't "correct" her on the sounds she made, atypical for humans and dogs, because there was nothing truly wrong in it. Was it strange? Yes. Was it negative, hindering abilities in some way? No. Later on, if she came across another dog and it was mentioned that her clucking wasn't right, it could be taken as him setting her up for a fall. He'd deal with it if it came to that. But speaking up on such a small, harmless matter was pointless and rude and served no one well.

The question on her end wasn't rude, even if the subject was sore and heavy and not something he'd quite figured out himself. It was present. Better to draw attention to the rabid elephant in the room and put it out of its misery as soon as possible.

He was so grateful he hadn't locked the door.

"Because I was sick," came out as he stood back up again, pocketed his hands, looked at the floor like an answer would start scrolling on by his feet. "I worked the cases. I had intimate knowledge of the crimes. I have a background that would make it believable I could commit the brutality required on a physical level." He'd only ever cut people open once they were dead, but he could manage to cut open someone well enough that they'd still be alive when he pulled still-breathing lungs out. "Got a knack for the monsters, so to speak. I've spent my life catching serial killers and getting to know them in ways no one else can, it's not exactly unreasonable that I could do what I've seen. But."

When he started walking, he made damn sure that he was still in her line of vision. No coming around from behind, just giving himself something to do while he puzzled it out himself.

"I had a disease called encephalitis, didn't get treated it for it until Dr. Chilton and Dr. Gideon had their...experience back where we're from. My brain was. Inflamed. It made me sick in a way that could have been taken as mental illness. Had an unofficial psychiatrist I told everything to. No matter how much he might have wanted to protect me, he'd have to hand those files over. Make me look guiltier. Good pick to frame, though...not sure how to explain the evidence they found that put me away. Not every day someone breaks into your house and ties human remains into your lures and you have no idea how or when—still haven't figured that part out."

Wouldn't until he realized who it was. Could not even fathom being so blacked out in his bed or missing while sleepwalking that someone had that amount of time to do it and he had no idea.

"Don't know how much to tell you, Annie. It's." He stopped by a box of candy that looked like worms, staring at the corner of the room instead of her, unable to phrase how serious it was just yet. "The accusations are for more than just murder. And more than four women. A neurosurgeon, guy closer to my age. Suppose making it sound like I target young women specifically turns me into a much bigger, more despicable monster."

Didn't it just.

walks in weeks later with small cafe coffees

[lyingheart]

Annie used her hands and her body to discourage Gunther from anything too overt. He wiggles more than horses do, but leaning in against her legs and ultimately presenting his back for petting is familiar enough, on a different level. She endured the happy tongue, long and wet and liable to drool as much as lick at her hands and arms, a lucky swipe catching her on the chin.

Annie pulled a small grimace, but says nothing, attention divided between the antics of the four legged friendly menace, and the two legged unknown one (but known, in one sense) in the other direction.

He didn't sound insincere. Annie balances her trust in what she hears with posturing, the ways people talk, and as Will talks, Gunther gets less of her focus, her hands maintaining a soothing sort of touch because the fur underneath them keeps pressing up, his tongue keeps engaging.

She braced herself, listening, struck by small things - swelling of the brain, someone needing to be close to have come in without him knowing, planting evidence that incriminates, or doing all of it himself - she won't discount the possibility. She might have been deciding it was less likely, but she wouldn't dismiss it out of hand.

Annie wasn't able to afford herself such luxuries.

"Why?" What was she asking after? "Why more of a monster for young women? A neurosurgeon is more valuable, in some sense. Young women aren't children. They're old enough to have lived to some extent. Why's that more monstrous?"

It was a tangent, and an honest one; figuring if it was supposed to be connotations of taking away the concept of youth, but for someone from her world and her context, death comes hard and fast to all ages, all beauties and uglinesses, and monstrous was taking life at all.

"Why can one life being taken be classified as more monstrous than another? The politics? The way your society views one over the other? The propaganda by the press?"

Breaking in and tying things to his lures only tells her it was someone who watched him closely. Being able to do that, with someone who has made a lifetime's worth of effort in watching and cataloguing (she listens, she reads, she notices what he says on network, in the public places) everything he comes across, required intimacy. He had to know that as well as anyone else. She wondered if he had his list of possibilities, or if he'd shut some of them out because of the innate way people had of ignoring what they didn't want to see.

A blindness that stills their hand when the logical, clear way to progress would have been in ending the life they spared. Tactics of war, maybe, to have left a friend of sorts dead in the dirt; tactics of the heart to have spared him, only to be brought down by him in the end.

Justice had its dues. Annie wouldn't regret the end sum of her actions for his sake - for Armin's - but for her own.

"What acquit you in the end?"

It wasn't enough attention for Gunther, who took the chance to leap up, balancing on his hind legs, paws pressing against her chest. Annie caught him there, hands under his elbows, supporting the length of his forelegs along the length of her forearms. For a moment, they looked like a bizarre couple, posed as if preparing to dance or embrace; an unremarkable teenager in her subtle colors, with subtle expressions in al she says turning into a quiet, focused stare at the remarkably mottled dog staring back. Gunther's mustache wiggled, his tail wagging once, then twice, but it was a small motion. They stared for a moment, both unblinking, before Gunther stretched his neck forward, wet nose bumping against her cheek as she turned her face away.

"Down," she said, bouncing her arms once as a warning, letting go of the dog and presenting him with her side as he touched back down on the floor with all four paws. Her hand came out, flat surfaced and giving him an almost universal sign for stop... among humans. She didn't know what hand signs Gunther as familiar with, if any at all.

Different trainers would have their own techniques. Will hasn't instructed her in his.

spills mine, drinks yours

[infomodder]

Annie had asked questions Will had little to no trouble answering, as had others. Questions about food or animals, things he took to be commonplace, those barely required any thought at all. The ones now were so different he stopped in his tracks, staring despite it being rude. He had to come up with an explanation at the same time he absorbed more about what sort of place her world was, and that world was getting darker by the word. Sunny day out, not a blind or curtain covering the windows in his shop, but it suddenly felt like the sky had grown black.

Ordinarily, he'd have moved to get the dog off her himself, but considering the nature of the conversation? Getting that close might have been a bad idea. Hand gestures? Not quite. Will simply looked at the dog, dropped his voice, and said, "Line," in a way that a parent might as a final warning to a child refusing to get in the car or go to their room. It was all in took for Gunther to turn around, walk back behind the tape line, and loudly flop to the floor. Moping wasn't off the table when it came to being behind the line. Will sent him a you know what you did look, but said nothing else.

"It's monstrous in its own way, but if a killer is a fully grown man like me who specifically targets young women just out of high school...then it's." How did he explain in it in really helpful way, and would his shuffling around a few things on the shelf help him figure it out? Not really, but he did it anyway. "Imbalanced. I'm an adult. I'm more experienced. I can take advantage due to that. Could insult and say that I was afraid of a real challenge, targeted people seen as weaker as opposed to. Someone more on my level." Had he been called a coward for taking on young women, or had people been eager to say he'd done it because of Hobbs, therefore he was just following in his steps? "A man who preys solely on women is different, it's. Viewed differently. Difficult to explain if you don't just get it, and I don't know what acquit me. I know my doctor in the hospital I was going to isn't afraid of me and that I've been let out. That's about it."

He hadn't shut any possibilities out if only because he hadn't thought about it as much as he really, really needed to.

"You want something to drink?"

Good timing.

stares at mess... goes to find straw???

[lyingheart]

"Anything without a lot of sugar or caffeine would be nice." Annie watched Will, having watched Gunther when he'd been instructed back to his line. He'd crossed one; there are implications for the other lines crossed, or the ones toed, or the ones left drawn in the sand, untouched for now.

She had her own lines. Or she used to - the time she spends here makes it harder to tell what lines were real, or which were imagined in her head.

She chose to think over the implications. "You treat young adults like children for a long time. It's... a luxury. But it makes sense, to think of people who're treated like children playing at being adult being easy to target. A full grown adult male has an advantage in height and weight. If they're all untrained and unaware of how to handle themselves, the advantage comes out overwhelmingly in his favor, even if he's unskilled and crude in method. It's not hard to see... but I have to see it from this world's perspective."

It was more said at one time than Annie generally likes to say, and it was followed by the way she turned away, showing him her back, and a certain statement about trusting what's there. There was a confidence in her actions, a surety in how she moved that said she didn't see him as a threat. Not on a physical level. Even with Gunther here, even guessing at the speed of the dog and his damage, Annie knew herself, and what to expect from herself.

If she were intent on defending herself, or doing harm, she would do so without holding back. There's no such intention present, only the consideration of his words.

"It's not as if we don't have reports delivered to the Military Police about people going missing, or turning up dead. The investigations only go so far. Without a pressing need or financial motivation, there's more that goes unsolved than finds resolution."

Corrupt organizations. She'd told him to different degrees before how inherently rotten it was; this only builds on that. Someone who aimed for and walks through that corruption, noting it, moving past it, not seeking to change it. Annie was not the woman who aimed to change the world around her. Adapt, work within it, go along with the flow... following those who might strive for change when they arise.

Those luxuries were few and far between here. She didn't understand the flow, only aspects of it, concepts she followed along with while trying to understand the greater spectrum of events happening all around.

Her hands ghosted over the shelves as she walked, not quite touching anything she encountered, but looking all of it over. She wasn't one who enjoyed shopping all that much - it was a necessary part of life, not a joy - but she can take what there is to be seen here and file it away for her own purposes.

Just a teen girl, walking through a bait shop. The picture of someone who might belong in this world, paired with all the wrong language, all the clues to how she's not.

"What fishing season are we heading into?"

just use a twizzler

[infomodder]

Turning her back to him spoke volumes, but what it spoke was something that needed to be chewed over, had him stopping in his tracks to go to the back room for something to drink, standing still and drinking in her every word. It might have spoke to some sort of trust in his word, that if he had been acquitted, she believed him, and thus he was no danger. It might have spoke to trust in herself, that no matter what it was he could do that would be dangerous, she could do better. She could outrun or outhit, she knew her abilities and no one could take that confidence from her. He could ask, sure, but that wasn't a good sort of curiosity to so openly indulge in. Would it have changed if he mentioned the small part about how he was going away for eating some of them, he wondered. Brutal murders were one thing, but to come away from them with organs, preserve them, take the time to cook them, eat them—what the hell else would have happened to Cassie Boyle's lungs if he was in the mindset of a cannibal?

His mind may have been packed full of various ways to harm the human body, but he wasn't a threat. With no desire to make himself seen as one, to boast about skills or methods, he was perfectly content to slide away from the conversation as it pertained to him into much nicer waters.

Nicer because they weren't about him, of course.

"For the Gulf, season opens for bay scallops soon. It's the middle of red snapper season. Both state waters and the Gulf will be open for spiny lobsters end of July, early August." He might have been reading a textbook, how certain and somewhat dull he sounded when he said it. Stating fact was very, very easy, no room for speculation or his own observations when dates were set in stone. He hadn't realized how fixed in his spot he was until answered. "Suppose I'm fortunate that my work with investigations involves making it end, no matter what it takes. I can work multiple cases at a time, but it's never over until we've caught who's turning up the dead. Other departments can deal with the...financial motivations."

They had their own sort of corruption, it might have been called. He understood the flow of it. Of all of it. He understood the purpose and went along with it, let his lungs steel themselves so they could absorb pollution and keep going on...until they weren't as braced as he'd thought they were. Corruption in some sort of law enforcement? Always. He didn't sound surprised by her adding to the earlier foundation, certainly not judgmental. More amused than anything, some things are really universal, so it goes.

Will's personal opinions on the way society treated children and young adults were a mess, were not the norm, and not because of his empathy. Children could kill as easily as adults, something that most people? Didn't want to think about. He didn't like to think about it if he didn't have to, but that didn't mean it left him, didn't mean he didn't go to sleep and vividly see their victims, their families felled at the dinner table, didn't recall the way it felt when he put a bullet through a mother's head from the spot of her son.

That wasn't something one brought up as discussion.

So he'd breeze right past if it he could, like he breezed from that spot to the back room, a doorway with no door that led to a small spot employees would take their breaks...if he had any. A table, two chairs, cabinets, counters, a coffee maker, his communicator, a cheap refrigerator and freezer set up, the paint a calming shade of blue.

"Got water and...vitamin D milk. Are you lactose intolerant, Annie?"

He might have been rude in his own right, but he wasn't about to ignore or discard dietary restrictions.

He was also not about to offer cheap beer to a teenager, but it was there if she wandered in and looked behind him.

[lyingheart]

She nods her head, once, acknowledging not so much a condition as a term she's come to understand might be applied to her and several from her world. "Dairy's harder on the stomach." Dairy everything, to different degrees, one she finds out mostly in experimentation and small inclusions. Her body isn't used to breaking down cow milk proteins. It hasn't had to, by and large. She didn't grow up on a farm. She didn't have an abundance of milk on hand growing up in the first place.

The idea of endings, definitive endings, is nice. Not comforting, actually, but nice, in a sense.

"It'd be nice if there were more time for things like that." Definite endings. Conclusions to the end of various mysteries that cause harm in a real sense, tangible as any crime report or missing persons case or murder ever had been when handed over to the Military Police. Annie handled so much of the paperwork, in the month she'd been active. It wasn't unpleasant.

Paper had a sense of weight behind it, even if the words and tallies on it might well be as fictitious as her life within the Walls. There's truth in both. It might just be hidden.

"Things with endings."

The clarification isn't necessary. She picks up a hat, not reading what it says on the brim, staring past it, really, turning it to examine the mesh on the backside. "What's a spiny lobster?" Or scallops. Or snappers, red or any other color. Annie doesn't know, doesn't mind showing, again and again, which things she doesn't know. They're details that anyone might not have picked up if they were sheltered enough, and her world was a sheltered hell in its own right.

Annie is sheltered as hell, in her own right.

[infomodder]

Harder on the stomach was all Will needed to know—whether preference or allergy or anything in between, it didn't matter, he could (and would) respect it. The milk went ignored, the issue with dairy noted for later reference, and it wasn't long before he'd managed a glass of ice water. A glass that had clearly been used to shovel the ice, but it was better than him just sticking his hand in there, wasn't it? If she thought he kept a distance when he handed it to her, she'd be right—but considering his next move was back to the front of the shop, it seemed just as likely that it could have been a drop and run.

The question wasn't what got the smile out of him, but the hat, the fact of the matter that she felt secure enough in her that she didn't find reason to avoid what might have been tacky or stupid if there was something of interest to it. Her world didn't seem like the type to have such luxuries, hats for pleasure produced in mass so much so that they could be as dumb as they were useful.

"We wish for that, too. Close ten cases, there's still some going on. Some we can't figure out. Some that might never have an end." Spoken from experience as he rifled through books and magazines behind the counter, experience that would have matched his old career. An old career that gave him a wonderful position to make sure that anything like true justice for families could be washed away, if he put any real effort into it, the effort of ignoring it. Ignoring it because someone he cared about would be in a position he didn't like. In Will's mind, at least one case he was around for would never go solved, not truly. Not when it painted Abigail in such a terrible light. "Here, this—this is a spiny lobster."

More magazine than book, something to do with the fishing seasons of the year, Will no longer keeping distance as he showed one of them, the page full of little facts and tidbits about it, other pictures, people holding them up and showing off that the lobster could grow very large. The way he stood with it, the way it leaned more towards Annie than him, it was indicative that she was free to take it herself. Look through, flip pages, satisfy curiosity, find something new. Probably even take it home if she asked.

"There's something like sixty in the family, all over the world. Got a lot of nicknames. Boil a big pot of them with...basil, chives, lemon, butter, parsley, seasoning—they're pretty good."

At least, Will thought they were good.

Pretty good taking the place of what might be just as well translated to something like fucking delicious.

[lyingheart]

Pretty fucking delicious or also pretty fucking unknown. Fish weren't bad, for all she hadn't had much of any sea fish. Or much meat in general. The accessibility was everywhere here. The desire, too, but it was tempered by what passed for her common sense.

The same common sense that had her examining his body posture in her peripheral vision before accepting the magazine, turning magazine glossy pages carefully, taking in the rich images and the stark, crisp words.

"Sounds interesting," she said, like everything sounded interesting. The water had been set down anywhere that seemed halfway appropriate, left untouched - she wasn't really thirsty. Not for water. "Might want to try it sometime."

There were so many things in this world that she wasn't sure how to navigate. Trying to understand her humanity, or lack there-of; what being a monster was, or what being human meant. There wasn't an easy answer. Annie was always glad about that, for all the rest that wasn't easy. It meant being too busy thinking and acting and reacting in the times where there was too much downtime for someone who hasn't lived with that kind of downtime or freedom to think beyond what she'd been trained to do for as far back as she can remember.

[infomodder]

He noticed the untouched state of the water but wouldn't comment on it. The general pleasantries were what they were, a routine that some people pulled off better, more extravagantly, made look extremely easy. Part of him had a feeling that her interest, verbalized and physically showed by taking the magazine, wasn't like those general pleasantries. It was all a legitimate interest, Annie taken out of a world that didn't seem to have a good deal of Will took for granted and faced with so much of that here. Most people he knew, if they gave him that answer, would be struggling to keep the sarcasm out of their voice. Annie? Not at all.

Which meant this all had to be played very carefully, didn't it.

"You ever wanna try anything in there, I'd." The pause was intentional, Will's hands shoved in his pockets, gave him time to look from the more obvious fishing equipment to the crab trap hung on one wall. Decoration, bait shop style. "Be able to get that set up for you."

Catch it, cook it or find someone else who could, set it up so that curiosity could be indulged without either of them having to go out of their way. He was a fisherman, of course getting to fish for anything wouldn't be going out of his way. Whatever schedule Annie had could be worked around. He ran his own business, he had no obligations other than what he took on. The tension in his shoulders didn't come from Will not knowing how the offer would be taken, didn't come from inwardly bemoaning the loss of time if she took him up on it; it came from a bad shoulder. Nothing more.

[lyingheart]

"I'm not sure. Seafood is.... an experience." It's new. Freshwater fish were a known quantity, she'd been lucky enough to try them before. Everything that came from the sea was something else altogether. So much of the palate of this world went beyond what she was used to in her own. Even salt, a luxury and expense, was so readily available as to be laughable here.

Strange creatures of the sea, good as they might be in the way that Will has said, are strange. New. A possibility that might be explored, if she were willing to take that step.

Is she?

"Is that a standing offer?"

If she changes her mind, one of these days. Watching his tension, and not feeding much into it of her own. Even if his came from little more than a bad shoulder.

[infomodder]

Experience. The glance he casts around the shop isn't furtive, has no reason to be. Between the shirts with their cheesy puns and the extremely small, complicated parts on sale that are a must have with reels, he can't say that seafood and how it's gotten is anything but an experience. Something that provides a learning experience in all aspects of life, can end up producing food, can continue, be carried on, be passed down and thus a healthy cycle repeats. Whatever people think of fishing, whatever people might think of his shop, it stands for something not easily seen by those who don't partake themselves, something he doesn't care to explain.

It's the opposite of illness. It's growth, nourishment, wellness in every sense of the word. Perhaps he won't ever be truly okay (perhaps Annie won't either, perhaps no one here will), but there's always a place he can go to get as close to perfection as possible.

He looks down at the question, shuffles like he forgot he had feet, moves away just enough to keep up with the appearance of as much. A cross between a hiss and a click of his tongue, not quite what he'd use with a dog, a semi-verbal announcement that he's thinking, that gosh, he just doesn't know, give him a second.

"Looks like it's standing to me." The joke is an obvious one, a dumb one, given out both with complete seriousness and sincerity. Joke that it is, he's not actually joking about the offer being standing. Tension melts with a shrug, a wounded shoulder relieved for a happy, brief second. "And like it'll stay that way, too."

He could say yes. Of course he could. It's simple, easy, but doesn't reflect how big of a yes it actually is. Cheesy humor, a promise without saying it's a promise, the doofy half-grin on his face that comes without strain when he looks back at her—that's much better, isn't it.