multiplez | Truck Stop, Southern Alberta, Thursday Morning

The showers here were free, which was good, because Z was running seriously low on money. She’d left her bag in a locker with a broken lock, but honestly she wasn’t that worried about it--there was no one around to steal it. She took her time enjoying her shower, letting the hot water beat down on her and banish the memory of the cold outside.

Then she came out, toweling her hair and humming some song she’d heard in the last truck, just in time to see a girl about her age running off with her backpack. “HEY!” she yelled, and tore off after the girl, hoping to hell her towel didn’t slip. “She’s got my bag!” she yelled as the girl tore through the main area. Z was losing ground, no way would she--

She slammed through the doors and out into the parking lot just in time to see the girl hop into a car full of other teenagers and drive off. With her bag. The part of her that had been planning to be a cop after high school screamed at her to get the license plate number, but it was obscured by snow.

Z stood there, up to her bare ankles in fresh snow, for about a minute, thinking about how everything she owned now fit in a toiletries caddy (at least she'd stuffed her mp3 player in the soap compartment) before a waitress with grey hair and a nametag that read ‘Sarah’ came out and said, “Hon, come on inside, you’re going to catch your death.”

“She’s got my bag,” Z said, stupid with cold. “I haven’t got any clothes.” Stupid, stupid, why hadn’t she created a replicate, she could’ve grabbed the bag and--

and everyone would have seen, and this wasn’t the island. No. Better to be naked in the snow.

Sarah gently rested one hand on Z’s back and said, “We’ll get you some clothes, hon, come on inside and let’s get you dried off.”

“Damn teenagers,” one of the truckers muttered. “Damn stupid prank.”

“Don’t just stand there, Harold,” Sarah chided as she ushered Z back into the warmth of the truck stop. “Get her a dry towel, her hair‘s wet as it can be."

"That was the Wyatt girl's car," another waitress muttered. "I'm going to call her mama, see if she knows where her hellcat daughter is.

"You do that," said Sarah, her tone suggesting she didn't think it would get Z's bag back. "What’s your name, hon?”

“Z. I--I‘m Z.” Z let Sarah lead her back into the locker room, where she toweled off and squeezed the water out of her hair. Then she was bundled into sweats and warm socks and a blanket, magically produced from somewhere, and installed in a booth near the heating vent, because she could not stop shaking. They gave her coffee and pancakes and a waitress named Pearl asked her her shoe size, then left, for Wal-Mart, from what Z gathered.

Sarah sat across from her and watched her with careful eyes. “Z, is there anybody you could call?” she asked. “You can use my cell phone. A girlfriend, maybe?”

Z shook her head. “No. No, I don’t have any girlfriends,” she admitted. “I don’t have a lot of friends. I don’t. I. I‘m not good with people,” she finally settled for. “They don’t like me.”

“I’m sure that’s not true,” Sarah said.

Z couldn’t tell her why it was, so she turned her attention back to her pancakes. As she chewed, she looked out the window. Across the parking lot and the highway, there was a pasture with some cows in it. Snow and cows, she thought, and borrowed clothes, and never ever ever being able to be herself, because 'herself' was a freak of nature. But there were other freaks of nature out there. Some of them even understood. “Sarah?” she asked. “Can I see that phone?”

((For Bridge; OOC OK))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

multiplez

Using her borrowed cell phone, Z dialed a number she knew pretty darn well.

From:

bridge-carson.livejournal.com

His phone is ringing, and it's a number he doesn't recognise. Which means either very good news... or very bad news.

"Hello?" he says cautiously.

From:

multiplez

"Bridge?" Z asked.

From:

bridge-carson.livejournal.com

Well, at least Z was the one *making* the call. That's a good sign, right? Means that at least if it's bad news, it's still bad news she's capable of delivering herself, so she's not, like, dead in a ditch somewhere.

"Z! Where are you? Can you stay right there, please? I'm trying to come get you but it's hard when you keep going like that."

From:

multiplez

"Yeah, I uh. That's not going to be a problem. I'm really sorry. Um. I'm in Canada?"

From:

From:

multiplez - Date: 2008-01-11 01:36 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

multiplez

*hums Tracy Lawrence song la*

From:

redintraining.livejournal.com

Poor Z. :(

From:

multiplez

I am a mean, mean, horrible person.

From:

redintraining.livejournal.com

What is it about beating up characters we like? :p I am AWFUL to Bridge in my fanfic, and I'm gonna be awful to Sky here pretty soon.

From:

time-flyer-5.livejournal.com

I am gleefully horrible to my characters on a regular basis. I think it's 'cause I keep picking characters who are pretty when they suffer.

I worry about myself.

From:

redintraining.livejournal.com

Oh yes, we all seem to love our woobies. To quote the TV Tropes Wiki, the characters whom you want to "wrap in a blanket and feed soup to when they suffer so beautifully". I have yet to beat up on Sky in fanfic (admittedly Bridge edges him out just slightly in the favorite-character area for me), but now that I'm playing him I will pick on him as much as I can. Someone as pretty as him needs the woobie treatment now. I want to make them pretty lips pout and stuff. &hearts

Edited Date: 2008-01-10 04:58 pm (UTC)

From:

spring-lost.livejournal.com

It's fun and oddly satisfying? ...As long as they get their happy time, too.

Of course, all I have to do to torment my characters is throw their canon at them. Ow...

From:

time-flyer-5.livejournal.com

Oh Marvel.

I'm kind of disturbed that I now play a Power Rangers character to whom I can pretty much do the same thing. O.O

From:

multiplez

Oh, Marvel indeed. *rescued Steve from death, what* There's a reason Bucky's Steve's only information pipeline right now, and that reason is that Bucky will not, in fact, tell Steve jack about what's happening while he's 'dead.' "Sharon shot me? Sharon's pregnant? Sharon's been kidnapped by the Red Skull????"