[For Druitt, Leah] I'm gonna rock this shit like fashion

[girlsolo]

The sun's hot and bright and Kate's eyes beg for the comforting black of shades. Apparently they don't have sunglasses in the Old West, which is obviously why all the pictures of the cowboy dudes and all the cowboy movie guys have crow's feet. 'Scuse her if she doesn't want them. The crow's feet. Shades, she'd pretty much kill for.

Tired of shading her eyes with her hand (her arm's tired, plus it's a lot harder to defend herself), Kate ducks into a men's store and convinces the ghost person to sell her a black cowboy hat. When she comes out again, she's not in the street again long when she decides this day blows. It might be fun, if she had someone to go hunt shit with. Rattlesnakes or maybe deer.

For now, she ducks into the nearest saloon. It's a little early to start drinking, so she orders sarsaparilla and bellies up to the bar. She hasn't been sitting there long when she gets bored and finds a set of darts. The ghost people aren't much fun to play with, and pretty soon she's playing by herself, sarsaparilla switched for beer, throwing dart after dart after dart at the board and trying not to think about people leaving.

Comments

[iliketodruitt]

John had never much cared for the American West. It was far too unlike London, with the bright sun and the vast stretches of little but arid desert. The only reason he had visited it all those years ago was because of how lawless it was, how much easier it was to kill without getting caught.

That and he could be back home before tea.

Now it was an inconvenience to be endured until the island saw fit to revert to its previous state. John Druitt had a great amount of patience when required and could merely wait it out.

Seeing Kate walk into the saloon though, he was reminded that this was hardly the worst thing that could happen to someone. John had lost the woman he loved and he knew how badly it could hurt.

"If it was possible, I would buy you a drink," he said, coming up behind her. He knew that she would sense him there, so he felt no need to announce himself.

[girlsolo]

"If it was possible, I'd stake you over an anthill slathered in honey," Kate returns, but there's no heat in it. He's been on his best behavior so long, not even really pissing Will off that she can tell, that being a bitch is reflex.

Today's probably less reflex than armor. The last thing she wants, possibly in all the world, is sympathy from Druitt.

"But I'll take a beer with a whiskey back, if you're pretending to buy."

[iliketodruitt]

"I'm quite sure that would be a terrible waste of honey," he said before turning toward the bar and placing her order. It didn't seem too self destructive of an order, which he took as a good sign.

"Do you play?" he asked, gesturing to the board with his chin.

[girlsolo]

"Probably but I'm a wasteful kind of chick. Excessive." Especially when it comes to force. He knows that.

The beer hits the counter and she scoops up the whiskey before it does, drains it, and stands up. She reaches behind her for the beer but she's already walking toward the dartboard.

"And those are projectiles. Of course I play."

[iliketodruitt]

"Kids these days," John said, clucking his tongue, as if wasting honey on torturing someone was a terrible crime against humanity.

He followed Kate over to the dartboard, although he really didn't have any interest in playing. He had much, much more time to practice at it. So much so, that it wouldn't be fair.

"At the turn of the 20th Century, in Leeds, there was a small legal debate on whether darts were considered a game of skill or chance. It seems the local magistrates were under the impression that it was all luck as to where the dart landed."

[girlsolo]

If he's going to pretend they're friendly today, that's okay, she decides. It's better than them getting into it, because in the mood she's been wearing, she can't say for sure she wouldn't just freaking shoot him if he pissed her off. Not to kill. Just to make him limp for awhile or something.

She's going to ignore the part where agreeing about anything, especially to tell themselves the lie they can be friendly means they might be getting anywhere near actually friendly. Because if she thinks about that (and she sucks down half her beer to make sure she doesn't) she could probably end up shooting him just for that.

What she does say, in the end, when she picks up the darts, is, "So in other words, the local magistrates were shitty darts players."

[iliketodruitt]

"Very," John said with a nod. That sort of thing was relegated to pubs, and magistrates certainly didn't spend their free time in pubs, learning darts. Still, the arrogance that came with the assumption that if they were poor at it, it must be chance, was almost alarming.

"To be honest, many at that time were not very good at being magistrates either."

[girlsolo]

Kate snorts at that, takes another long sip of her beer and then sets it at the high table by her elbow. She toes the line while saying, "So what's with the daytime drinking?" and then tosses the dart. It flies for the center ring without even a wobble. Not a bullseye, but under the circumstances, damned close.

"Obviously I'm here to give the local rattlesnake population time to refresh." Since she's been out shooting them for something to do with her aggression.

[iliketodruitt]

"I never understood what the hour of the day has to do with the suitability of a drink," John said. As long as you didn't need to be sober for whatever task you had planned the rest of the day, there was nothing wrong with imbibing.

"And I assume you're going to tackle the soon-to-be over populated rodents next?" he asked. Really, someone who worked for Helen should know better.

[girlsolo]

Kate rolls her eyes at him over her shoulder before she tosses the second dart and doesn't even watch it fly. "Like anything obeys the natural laws of predation on this island or desert or whatever it is," she scoffs. If it did, he'd still be a serial killer and she'd still be hunting him. "And if it is, we'll be changed back before it matters."

It's not a good justification, and she knows it. But there are kids running around the island and kids and rattlesnakes are a bad mix, no matter whether it's ecologically sound or right or not.

[iliketodruitt]

"I imagine things would start obeying those laws if it meant making things unpleasant for us," John said.

While he wasn't sure the island was some sort of malevolent entity, despite being cured of his madness he found it a sort of personal hell. As much as the freedom of his mind meant to him, it was a hollow gift without being able to share it with Helen as he wished to.

"Though you could certainly make a nice pair of boots with a few of the skins from the snakes."

[genetic_deadend]

General consensus as far as Leah could tell--and she wasn't the best source, since she put a lot of effort into avoiding having actual conversations with people--was that no one much liked the "change." Leah couldn't really speak to the 'change' part since this dustbowl crap was all she knew of this place so far, but she could agree, one hundred percent, on the bit about hating it. She hated her clothes, she hated the weather, she hated the ugly buildings and the ugly cacti and the ugly goddamned sky.

And even worse, and creepier are these half here, half not people that only really have substance when you really need something. Leah hated even having to buy a drink, if you can call it that, and there weren't a lot of people in the saloon that weren't spectral. So she stared, without really seeing, at the girl playing a very one-sided game of darts, perpetual scowl on her lips that really had nothing to do with anything from her current outside environment.

[girlsolo]

Yeah, Kate feels the black eyes boring through her to somewhere else. She knows without seeing that the scowl on that other angry mouth matches hers. The thing is, she doesn't care. She's had enough beer to dull the itchy-prickly skin-crawl of being looked through like one of the ghost-people.

So she keeps tossing darts, one after another. Back to the dartboard to pluck them out, and back to the line to pitch them again. Anyone not paying attention might think she was drunk, but the darts kept hitting closer and closer and closer, each round a tighter cluster on the gold and center red.

It's about fifteen minutes, maybe a half an hour, before she turns to signal one of the ghost-people for another beer. When she does, she catches the girl's eyes, anger to anger, and then lets a smirk curl the corners of her mouth. "You playing or just sitting there watching me whip imaginary ass all night?"

[genetic_deadend]

So inwardly was Leah's focus turned that it took her a few solid awkward seconds of blinking rather stupidly to realize that, yes, she was being spoken to. Her complexion, deep and dusky though it is, isn't dark enough to hide the embarrassed flush that creeps across her cheeks.

"Don't really know how to play." She was twenty, and she didn't exactly spend a lot of time hanging around in taverns or bars. "I mean, beyond 'throw the pointy thing at the board and try to hit the center'."

[girlsolo]

"That's pretty much all there is to it. That, and the loser usually pays for the next round, so you're off the hook here." Kate smirks, hand planted on her hip and darts held out on an open palm, as much taunt as invitation.

About a beat later, her mouth twists into a sharper smirk, eyes flashing with mischief that outshines (hides. Look over here, nothing in my hand, nothing up my sleeve) the black mood she's been carrying around. "Unless you want to play for clothes. But I usually save strip darts for a second date activity." Lie. But she's not hitting on this chick anyway.

[genetic_deadend]

Leah knew she was being baited, but she was mellow enough not to go for the throat. Instead, she scoffed softly under her breath and set her glass down with a firm snap of base against wood.

"You want them that badly, you can have them," she quipped with a roll of her eyes, holding her hand out for the darts. "They're ugly anyway." They weren't, not really, she just really didn't want to be wearing them. She missed, sorely missed wearing plain, boring old blue jeans.

[girlsolo]

"Nah. Who knows what they'll turn into when this place goes tropical again," Kate quips back, the war of way too many emotions briefly visible in her eyes, then submerged again into a more playful smirk.

She handed off the darts to the girl, not in a hurry to do the name thing so not bothering to ask. "Besides, I'd hate to have to shoot some jackass for not being able to keep his eyes or his hands to himself." Which held no matter which of them won. Except the shooting part. She'd probably just break a finger or two.

[genetic_deadend]

That was a creepy thought, that her clothes would just change with the scenery, but if it gave her a couple of decent pairs of jeans and a tank top or two, she might actually be willing to forgive the doeskins and moccasins.

"I could handle myself, no need for a gun," Leah drawled with the tiniest curling of her lips. She held one of the darts with her thumb and forfinger, rolling it to get a feel for it, testing the weight.

"I'm betting you could too," she added, frowning in concentration as she tried to line up her throw. Wasn't there some trick to this? Something about smooth movement and when to release it?

Ah, screw it, she thought, cocked her arm, her throw too hard and graceless. The dart, contrary thing that it was, bounced off the target and fell, very anticlimacticly, to the floor. Leah scowled at it as though it has personally offended her by not compensating for her crappy throw. "Well, fuck."

[girlsolo]

"You'd be right," Kate answers, while she's fiddling with the darts. Good instincts, testing them for weight and balance. That tells Kate plenty. "But I like guns. Like blowing shit up, too, and the island's notoriously short on opportunities for both. Can't blame a girl for looking to get her shots in where she can take them."

It's all a slow, bullshit drawl, the kind of thing that feels natural in a bar over beer and darts to Kate, even if she doesn't know this chick. It's not like Kate's interest in weapons and explosives is exactly a secret. Maybe she should put up a shooting range or something instead of shooting trees and rattlesnakes.

That's what she's thinking when the dart bounces off the target and hits the floor. Kate could tell her a little arc would help and the darts stick better if they're coming in on a slightly downward angle. But she's kind of curious how long it'll take the girl to figure it out.

[genetic_deadend]

Leah made a vague, noncommittal noise, mostly to show she was still listening. When it came to causing damage, Leah vastly preferred to use her claws and her teeth--or her fists, since the other two were no longer an option. But she got the appeal of shooting a gun. Her dad had taught her to shoot as soon as she'd been big enough to handle a BB gun.

Her second throw isn't all that impressive, but it does manage to stick in the board. By the third she's adjusted and confident enough that she won't keep embarrassing herself. Leah could be stubborn as hell, but she was a quick study.

"So, what, do people bring in the boar the old fashioned way?" She glanced over her shoulder as she retrieved the darts from the board, and the one that had fallen to the floor. "Bows and arrows? Spears?"

[girlsolo]

"Traps, stakes, spears, guns--" Kate shrugs, then steps up to take down the girl's score on the blackboard. "Island's kind of catch as catch can for weaponry." And Kate had reasons not to want to be part of the hunting team. Weird, it didn't stick to rattlesnakes but maybe that was 'cause one bite from a sunning snake in the wrong place could kill William or Bonny.

She writes a K in her column and realizes they haven't gotten around to doing introductions yet. "Kate, by the way. You?"

[genetic_deadend]

"Leah." She frowned down at her score and huffed out a breath; well, that'd be a lot of ground to make up. Hell, she was probably screwed.

Oh well. She shrugged and passed Kate the darts. "Good to meet you."