I'm Looking for a Soft Place to Land [Closed]

[awfulcer]

Who: Jason Dixon and Robbie Baldwin
What: An apology, a scavenger hunt,
Where: The Wawa.
When: After the network meltdown.
Warnings/Notes: Your typical Dixon warnings.

[Dixon's taken a disliking to the library. It's cold and musty, and more frustratingly it seems like everyone's in there, and once again he's coronated himself as King Non-Grata, so he heads out to the Wawa to do some scavenging and spend some time alone, away from what he suspects are annoyed glances and snide comments. No one's said anything outright, but no one's had to; Dixon feels he knows what's on their mind, a sort of projection of his own weapons against himself slotted into the hands of others.

There's always a crash after the explosive bursts of temper. It's like actual wildfire, leveling every other thought to the ground, except nothing new really grows out of it except remorse. And so he isolates, shambling around the buildings with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders like a shawl, pawing at but having just enough wherewithal to avoid opening that pack of cigarettes he's toting around.

Everyone's going to look for food, he figures. They'll look for water and medical kits and all the obvious things. Dixon can't really be bothered to care about any of that, possibly because he assumes someone else will care about it, possibly because the medical supplies and healing that have been available haven't done jack for the stab wound in his back and the sight of food makes him queasy.

Instead, he's looking for an assortment of things he imagines others won't think to go after. He already has a pack of playing cards he's hoarded away, and now he's searching for a whistle and a flashlight. Maybe sunglasses. Always cigarettes.

He finds a ballpoint pen that's still working, and shuffles his way towards the counter, absentmindedly pulling out his wallet and some cash before he remembers that there's no one here, that he was about to pay an empty cash register for a single ballpoint pen. He glances around to see if anyone saw him.

And sees Robbie, one of the people he snapped at hardest. Dixon stays rooted to his spot, brain stalling like a stick-shift car as he tries to think of a response, ka-thunk, ka-thunk. The fact that he eventually comes up with words at all feels like a minor miracle. Not a Lazarus-from-the-dead miracle, but definitely on the coin-in-a-fish scale.]

Figured it'd just be polite to pay for it. [It sounds like it could be a joke but his delivery lacks the confidence. He gingerly tucks the twenty back into the wallet.]

Comments

[balladin]

[ The scattered debris of long gone snacks – Entenmann's, Tastykakes, and – most tantalizing of all – the label of a package of chocolate star cookies, the kind with the nonpareils that were as hunted and elusive in New York bodegas as a case of Tab, litter the floor. From the looks of it, rats had one hell of a bender decades ago.

Robbie's still staring at the simple, deli-printed label when Dixon came in. He’s not a cookie addict, but it’s almost something from home. Some clear, tangible reality breaking through what might as well be a dream. He folds it up and pockets it without a real reason. Robbie wants to ask around if it’s true that you can’t read in dreams, but he has to work it into a conversation without sounding as if he’s still convinced this is a dream.

Dixon’s walking to the counter with a pen in one hand and a wallet in the other. For a second, Robbie’s confused, but it clicks almost simultaneously as Dixon’s explanation. He grins over at him. Life’s too short to hold grudges. ]

Don’t get me wrong – I’m down with the sentiment, but I think you can keep your twenty. If there’s no cashier, it’s free.

[ He winks at Dixon. This is not the advice he would be normally dispense in a convenience store, but this Wawa is more of a Woewa. ]

How’s tricks, Dix? I keep getting tossed in the brig.

[awfulcer]

Just force of habit. Since shoplifting's illegal. [Dixon tries to orient himself into saying something, anything that isn't obvious and dumb. He's having a hard time with it. He's not exactly a renowned standup comedian on a good day, and with his head fogged up from the injury and just general fatigue holding onto anything more than a basic thought is like trying to catch a moth with his hands.

He does, however, visibly relax when Robbie smiles and winks. He was fully prepared for this to be awkward and tense; his knuckles were preemptively tight, heels alright dug in, ready to defend the last of the corner he backed himself into earlier. With the gracious, friendly gesture, Dixon looks like someone cut a wire between his shoulders that had been pulling them taut, and he smiles back.]

Not great, but at least I don't keep getting yanked into a mirror. Shit to be you. Maybe that's where whoever was running this place went off too. Like, ten months ago. [He had been wondering where so many of the people had been going. The group sort of amorphously changes size, sometimes a village worth of people and sometimes just a huddle. He's been keeping track, writing down on the inside of one of the comic books he grabbed the names of everyone he knows here and sometimes-rude descriptions of the ones he doesn't ("Fat Space Guy", "Girl with the Bad Hair") and putting checks next to the ones he sees when he does a circle round the camp each night.

(Sariatu, Shuichi and Urahara's names are botched beyond the point of recognition; a trained linguist wouldn't be able to make heads or tails of what Dixon was going for there).]

Look, I, uh, I wanted to apologize for earlier. I went off my chain a little. [He scuffs a shoe against the floor as if he were a child apologizing for eating the teacher's apple.] A lot.

[balladin]

I – O – U one pen. Love, Dixon.

[ His finger scratches the note in the dust out on the counter. ]

Got you covered.

[ Robbie keeps right on nodding in agreement. The Brugh is boring, and he feels like the opposite of helpful when he’s there. Everyone else is trying to examine and discover and figure out. Robbie is the guy who keeps going down the basement while announcing he’ll be right back.

Then, Dixon changes tacks and tracks, and the difference is palpable, both physically and verbally. ]

Yeah, you did.

[ Robbie’s blunt about his agreement. To his mind, apologies don’t make up for mistakes. Period. They do signal that someone – in this case, Dixon – is conceding they were out of line. But feeling bad isn’t a get-out-of-jail free card.

The concession is a step in the right direction, and it isn’t like Robbie’s the one who can give him absolution or judgement which is why, despite the curtness, he doesn’t sound overly preachy about it. ]

I’m not the one you insulted – one of the ones. Apologize to Brainy and Harper if it’ll make you feel better. Don’t waste your nerve on me because you think I’m personally insulted. I’m offended, and I’ll defend them, but I’ve been insulted by the best.

[ It’s a recycled line, but who cares? It’s appropriate, and Dixon doesn’t know it’s yesterday’s fish. ]

[awfulcer]

I'm planning on it. Just haven't had the chance yet. [Well, he's planning on apologizing to Brainiac; he's certainly not going to extend the same courtesy to Harper, who can get fucked. As far as Dixon's concerned, going off on Harper was a natural response to Harper repaying his brush with death to save Harper's life with cruelty. He's going to do his best to keep calm (calm, calm, he's been worrying that word through his head like hippies fondle smooth stones in their palms) the next time he and Harper have to be in proximity, but he has a feeling it's going to take work and even strategizing to avoid each other.]

I'm sorry. Still. Since I yelled at you too. [It's not an insistence on Robbie forgiving him, just a making certain that someone gets what they're owed. He's not miffed by not getting any kind of absolution; he wouldn't have given it to himself anyway. Occasionally, low self-esteem becomes a protective barrier against disappointment or offense. He actually appreciates how straightforward Robbie's giving it to him, and he nods, absorbing and accepting it.

Robbie's underlying ideological objection doesn't really register (as far as Dixon's aware, he doesn't think himself a homophobe), but it seems like the right place to leave that part of the conversation. They hashed that all out in a minute, and there's nothing to add but go in circles or make it worse.

He tucks the pen into the lady's drawstring bag he snagged from the old clothing store; not a style he's normally go with but options are thin on the ground. He knows it means more to carry, but he can't really help himself from hoarding small treasures: a deck of cards, some comic books, a Mad Magazine, a pair of sunglasses.

He gestures around them at the dilapidated Wawa.] So. What you shopping for?

[balladin]

Nice. I knew you weren’t a total dick.

[ He’s no bastion of decorum and possibly too prickly for prolonged doses, but he wasn’t bad, only misguided. And Dixon’s correcting as best he can. Robbie made his point.

Waving off the continued apology, he shakes his head and coughs up a stereotypical New Yorkism. ]

Hey, fuhgeddaboutit.

[ He sounds like Rich, and a wave of nostalgia washes over him. Robbie looks around at the convenience store hurriedly. ]

I guess I was looking for anything useful. There’s not much left, but let’s face it. If this is an Escape from New York situation, I’m the guy that goes down from starvation because you can’t eat a junkyard.

[awfulcer]

Nah. Just mostly one. [It smarts a little, the backhanded approval, but he knows it's a more gracious gesture than he could demand. He smiles, just briefly. He always feels a little off-balance around Robbie, like he's one twitch from falling off a tightrope, but it makes it a little more encouraging when he feels he's doing alright keeping from pitching over.

He remembers that movie. He almost says something to tip his hand, something about how people like him wouldn't last long in a maximum-security prison because every person in the yard would have it out for them - something even about how prison was probably where he was headed before he showed up here, the natural consequences of a roadtrip to go murder a stranger - but there are some things he's keeping close to his chest. Not out of strategy, but just because they're fresh, bloody, sensitive wounds not ready for the bandages to be removed.]

It's okay, I'm not gonna be the guy saving the president either. Probably'll get killed looking for smokes in a booby trap. [He pats the pack in his ratty, mangled jacket.] I'm looking for a whistle. I figure if we send people out to do stuff who can't do it natural then at least they'd have a way to call out for help easy.

Though goddamn, I'd give an arm and a leg for the rats to haven't have eaten all the chips. Seeing a bunch of Dorito wrappers sitting around empty is kind of torture.

[balladin]

Saving the president is overrated. You don’t even get a burger out of the deal.

[ What did they get out of defending the White House? Aside from injuries. Robbie can’t remember, but he’s positive it wasn’t even worth a meal. ]

Sometimes, I think I want to be the grizzled hermit in an action movie. He knows the deal, he helps in the side quest, and then he turns up alive again at the end. Does Escape From New York have one of those? It’s been awhile.

[ He’s trying to help them both out of the awkward apology, quickly spinning the conversation further and further away without losing the thread completely. ]

The Doritos aren’t hitting me as hard as the star cookies and the Mallo cups. You can get Doritos anywhere. But Mallo cups? It’s like, aw, man. You can’t get them anywhere, and I know the rats didn’t appreciate it.

[awfulcer]

I ain't seen it in years. I couldn't say. [Dixon's memory retention, like so many intellectual skills, is Not Great. It's not just that he doesn't remember stuff he took in, it's that's he spaces out frequently enough that he sometimes just doesn't absorb it the first time. A terrible combination of bad recall and lack of focus.]

Sure, you can get Doritos anywhere, but that's because they're classic. Ain't nobody turns down a bag of Doritos if you offer it to them, especially if you offer it to them in a...whatever this is. Apocalypse?

[It seems like the wrong word, but he doesn't have the right one. "Magical quest", maybe, but recent events have taken a lot of shine off the magic. It's one thing when magic's curative spells and enchanted shields; it's another when it's curses to torture teenagers and knife-wounds that rot instead of heal.

There's cash register paper. Dixon grabs a roll of it and starts to jot down, in questionably-spelled but highly-legible writing, whistel, Mallow Cups, Star Cookies, Doritos, cigarettes. He tears off that chunk with some extra and tucks the rest of the register paper into the handbag.]

You got anything to add? I'm thinking we should check the other stores, see if maybe someone put something in a locker or something. [He's sort of volunteered Robbie to keep him company. Now that the bubble of isolation has been popped, he's clingy as a limpet.]

[balladin]

[ Robbie saw it once, also years ago, and a lot of the finer details didn’t stick or were overwritten with information that he considered more genuinely important. It was a passable movie, but it was dark. He’s got enough dark memories to carry around the finer plot points.

So he shrugs it off. ]

Well, yeah. I’m not going to turn down real food after weeks of nuts and berries and magically appearing feasts of dubious origin. Don’t get me wrong – this is the nicest apocalypse I’ve ever taken part in.

[ Watching Dixon write the note, he’s pretty touched to see what he mentioned go on there, but a wave of guilt flushes most of the gratefulness away. ]

Enh, don’t worry about the cookies and junk. We’re not going to find them, and it’ll just waste time trying.

[ We, because he’s obviously coming along. It’s a good idea, he thinks, to search in pairs in case they get ambushed by Dementors again, and they might find something large and useful, like a tent. ]

Did you see any stores that looked good? I always hit the bodega first. They’ve got everything.

[ He looks around at the nothing that Wawa has. ]

This one’s more of an inconvenience store.

[awfulcer]

It can't really hurt to look. Worst that happens is we find other stuff. [And it's not like Dixon has anything to do around here besides feeling sorry for himself and playing endless games of solitaire. Granted, there probably are productive things he could be doing, but he's giving himself a sick day on account of his injury.

(If it weren't for the injury, he'd probably find another excuse for a sick day. It's his nature.)

"Inconvenience store" is probably the first joke Robbie's told that gets a full-on laugh from Dixon, although that momentarily turns into a cough. His lungs have been throwing a confused riot since his tobacco intake was drastically reduced, taking this window of opportunity to kick up all kinds of nasty tar.]

I saw a K-Mart way back. It looked in even worse shape than this place, but I didn't go inside. There were a bunch of those weird car things out in the lot in front of it, though. Probably best we're not chancing it alone. [As if to reaffirm that at least for now, they're a team.]