[For Auggie] Everybody's got a hunger, no matter where they are

[girlsolo]

It's the fifth night since she stole Will's baseball. Five nights and he still hasn't caught her, caught up with her, he probably doesn't even suspect her and she's bored of the game. Bored of stealing but not profiting and not interested in profiting at the expense of a bunch of random strangers as stuck here as she is. What good's profit when the drink the bartender serves her is free?

That's the problem with this fucking island. Even more than Will not being her Will and Magnus being just a woman instead of a legend. None of her skills are worth a damn. She's a thief on a commune. A gun in utopia. She's not even a misfit toy. She's just a useless one.

Fuck, that's depressing. She sighs, pulls her feet up onto the booth bench, leans back against the wall and scans the crowd while she sips her drink.
*
Title and lj-cut lyrics from Melissa Etheridge's Precious Pain.

Comments

[theblindguy.livejournal.com]

"Good song choice," he comments, a twinge of a smirk lifting. He gets it, though - the same restlessness he knows he'll probably have to deal with one day. He considers the comment about the powers, taking another decent swig of the alcohol he'd brought over. After a moment, he just shrugs a shoulder. "When you have nothing to begin with, it's hard to be angry when you're given something back for a little while."

And because that's way too serious a comment, especially to someone he hardly knows, he does add, "Plus, I can't complain about some of the things and people I got to see."

[girlsolo.livejournal.com]

When you have nothing to begin with, it's hard to be angry when you're given something back for a little while. Kate frowns into her drink at that comment, thinking about it. Because getting angry about what she'd been given back, that's pretty much what she's been doing. She thinks it might depend on what it is and how much you want it, but Auggie probably wants to see as much as she wants to make up for the shit she did before the Sanctuary. As much as she ever can.

She doesn't have an answer, she decides. It's something to think about. She lets it slide off her shoulders, smirks, and asks, "Yeah, anyone special?" but she touches her glass quietly to his in acknowledgment of what he's lost again.

[theblindguy.livejournal.com]

"Maybe a few," he replies, eyebrow raising a little. Of course he did. Half the island apparently was comprised of extremely attractive women, which doesn't hurt his opinion this place can't be that bad. "Some stuck out more than others."

[girlsolo.livejournal.com]

Kate just bets she sticks out, like a sore thumb or a cactus in a cornfield. Island's not as white as your average small town, but she still feels exposed all the time. She could help herself by wearing more island-friendly clothes, but she likes her denim and leather and kick-your-ass chic and she's not looking to get rid of it.

She's about to say something about it when she realizes even when Auggie could see he couldn't see, frowns, takes a long swallow of her drink and then asks an actual question, "What makes someone stand out, with how you were seeing. Or now?"

She's not really fishing. Kate knows what she looks like and she's confident in it. But if a blind guy uses other senses, like Hank and Biggie, maybe she's not hot or maybe she's giving shit away about herself she'd really rather not.

[theblindguy.livejournal.com]

"All I could really see during the weekend was the shape of a person," he admits. Kate had a nice one, he remembers, with a nice voice to accompany it. Smiling over the mug he's holding, he adds, "But without sight? That's when things get interesting. I don't know if I should share my secrets though, they are pretty impressive."

[girlsolo.livejournal.com]

"Go on," Kate says, voice picking up a hint of a purr where the 'babe' would go, but 'babe' doesn't want to stick to him, and she hasn't come up with a nickname she likes for him yet. "Impress me." She puts a wink and a flirt, a verbal shimmy, in the beat before she adds, "More than you already have, of course."

[theblindguy.livejournal.com]

"Already? I'm just getting started," he says with a small smirk. Leaning forward a little in his seat, he pauses a moment, as if considering her. There's a lot of things he can already guess about her, actually, but he also knows prying too deeply, especially with a girl like he assumes she is, isn't the way to go with this. "I can tell a lot about people, you know - maybe even more now than I used to be able to when I could see. For example? If I had to guess, I'd say you are extremely athletic just by how you walk. Maybe even to the point of being able to fight."

People with that kind of stride - with that kind of control over their own body - usually did have some kind of background in combat, be it with weapons or not. If he has to guess, he's leaning toward with right now, but he isn't sure enough to pin it down.

[girlsolo.livejournal.com]

Kate thinks about that, head cocked a little like she's listening to something. Maybe she is. Listening to the weight of footsteps she knows well, trying to think if she'd make those judgments. Maybe. She definitely does off of watching people walk.

"Not bad." She smiles, tapping the side of her glass with her fingertips. "I can hold my own." Another pause, another playback, another shift of the conversation, "I'm very flexible." It's unsubtle, but there's no push in it. She'd hit that in a heartbeat but she's not desperate, just playing. "What else you got for me?" she teases, lighting it again.

[theblindguy.livejournal.com]

"Flexible too, huh?" he muses, like he's thinking about that. "You're more impressive than I was picking up on. And that's saying a lot."

And he pauses then, considering the question, and his smile is a little more mischievous when he adds, "You find me attractive. Which I don't blame you for, by the way."

[girlsolo.livejournal.com]

"I don't find you attractive," Kate shoots back, but there's immediate laughter in her voice and a tease in the purse of her lips. "You are attractive, whether I find you or not. Then again, now that I've found you, you're a lot more attractive. Because I'm smokin' hot."

Kate takes a long sip of her drink and wonders how to translate flashing eyes and batted lashes into Braille.

[theblindguy.livejournal.com]

"Is this one of those things where I look better just by associating with you?" he asks, smirking now. He doesn't need her to tell him how attractive she is - the confidence she practically exudes plus what little he could see tells him that. "Because I can believe that."

[girlsolo.livejournal.com]

Kate grins, nothing sharp or angled in it. He plays and she likes it. It's not like Hank or Will or Biggie. They play, but they won't flirt. "Nope. This is one of those things where the hotness quotient of this bar went up by a factor of ten when you sat down with me."

[theblindguy.livejournal.com]

"Only by a factor ten?" he asks, a brow lifting, sounding mock-disappointed. "Well, I guess we shouldn't make it go up by too much."

[girlsolo.livejournal.com]

"Ten's huge, my friend." Kate takes a long sip of her drink and then adds, "This place was seriously easy on the eyes before we got here."

Even Kate gets tired of aimless flirting eventually. She props her elbow on the table and her chin on her hand, watching him. "So where was home, before you got here?"

[theblindguy.livejournal.com]

"D.C.," he explains as he sits back, getting comfortable in the booth seat. It's about as common a question as you can get around here, and even so, he always forgets that people might not even know what D.C. is. She comes across as someone who probably would, so he doesn't correct himself. "2011, if you're really curious. You?"

[girlsolo.livejournal.com]

His voice doesn't sound like the Eastern seaboard but his speech has familiar rhythms. Like Feds or the UN inspectors or military higher-ups they sometimes deal with. She puts him on the Hill. Maybe a staffer of some kind. Color her curious.

"Old City, near the Canadian border." She adds that because people don't seem to know Old City. It's probably called something else in his words. "2011, for me too. Tell me you're not a lobbyist."

[theblindguy.livejournal.com]

No where he's ever heard of, but that isn't all that surprising. Not here, not anymore. Auggie laughs at the question, shaking his head. "Not a lobbyist. Never was a fan of government bureaucracy. Computers, though? Different story. I worked at the Smithsonian, in its' IT department."

[girlsolo.livejournal.com]

"Smithsonian, huh? What's it like to work there?" Kate thinks Smithsonian and her fingers itch. She never pulled a big museum job, but she bets she could. If they needed to get an Abnormal egg out of there or something. Like the bank they took down.

Then there's the part of her that's looking at him and thinking that body's no desk jockey. Or if he is, he spends beaucoup time at the gym.

[theblindguy.livejournal.com]

"Ever see those Night at the Museum movies? All true. Ben Stiller included," he jokes, even leaning in a little to act like he's telling her some big secret. He finishes off what's left of his alcohol before continuing, "Seriously, though, it wasn't a bad job. I was well paid, and the work I did helped keep things running. What did you do before here?"

[girlsolo.livejournal.com]

"Sounded cool til you got to Ben Stiller. That guy is a freak." Doesn't matter if it's true or not, she guesses, so she grins and signals for another round for both of them. If he doesn't want it, she'll drink it. "Shit coming to life in the museum at night must've been wild." Maybe that explained the body. "Kinda like my job. Private security for a global NGO."

[theblindguy.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, he really messed up the movies," Auggie grins as he sits back, nudging the empty mug aside before he does. The mention of being security pretty much confirms just how right he'd been about his guess, and he's immediately curious about what kind of NGO she's talking about. "Your job was wild? Or are you saying you actually dealt with inanimate objects coming to life? Because I was kidding."

That he isn't actually completely joking about the second question says a lot about the extent he's willing to believe at this point since coming here.

[girlsolo.livejournal.com]

Kate watches his hand move the mug and wonders how long it takes to get that sure about moving without your eyes. Definitely a skill worth having. She's going to talk to Declan about that. Sparring blindfolded.

His question pulls a rough snort for her. "Not objects coming to life, but I wouldn't have been surprised. We work with rare and dangerous species." She really needs to talk to Magnus about what it's okay to say here. "Protecting them from humans. Protecting humans from them." Smithsonian or not, if he's from DC, Auggie ought to be able to hear the Classified all over that.

[theblindguy.livejournal.com]

That went beyond classified and right into X-Files territory, actually. She's just vague enough for him to take a good guess she either can't or won't talk about it if he asks more questions. That doesn't meant they aren't immediately there, especially more about this apparent species she worked with.

"So what you're saying is I was really on the mark when I said you can handle yourself," he replies, the only indication of how curious he is is a slight lift of his eyebrow. Something about blatantly prying when he's lying through his teeth about most of his own background doesn't sit right with him.

[girlsolo.livejournal.com]

"I wouldn't want to meet me in a dark alley," Kate says with a soft smirk and pushes her fingers half across the table to touch the back of his hand before flipping hers over palm up. It's mostly an invitation for him to "see" for himself from the calluses that haven't smoothed yet even after a month on the island, microscarring from gunpowder burns, strength in the curl of her fingers and her forearm.

"Unless it was pre-arranged and there's kneeling involved." That's sort of an invitation too, but there's something about Auggie that makes it lighter, more playful and less want to get the fuck out of here? She likes talking to him.