[The air out here is a hell of a lot nicer than New York. Even in the sweltering summer heat, when there's always a hint of smoke on the wind, either from a local grass fire, or a wildfire out on the prairies. The wind can carry that for hundreds of miles out here.
And after a stay in a Calgary hospital courtesy of a fake Canadian ID, how on Earth could Matt Murdock resist a town literally named Purgatory to spend his time recouping. I mean, really.
He won't even have to sign a postcard to Foggy if he wants to tell him he's alive. The postmark alone will be enough.
To bad the place lives up to its name a little too literally.
Which is why its local guardian devil is a little on guard when someone new is in town, white cane or not.
"Especially when he's got an ass like that," he might have overheard her say to Waverly when she excused herself from her spot at the bar to sit down at his table.
She smells like leather and whiskey, with notes of dried hay and dust- likely from a barn without any livestock (the smell of which does, unfortunately, cling a little to some of the other patrons at Shorty's). There's also a shock of something a lot more rare this side of the border- gunpowder.]
I hope you realized moving to this small of a town would mean being talked about a lot. Don't worry- I won't stay long, since talking to me for too long isn't gonna do you any favours.
[Don't mind her just kinda casually pointing Peacemaker at him under the table to see if the runes light up. Nope! Ok, not a demon. Cool. She's kind of counting on the whole blind guy factor to make this easier than it is normally. ]
[He had never thought of Canada as a warm place. More north, so surely it was supposed to be cooler. Right? The small town meant not nearly as much noise or as much distraction from the way clothes stuck to his skin more. And that's without the layer of bandages still on him at discharge. How he got here, how long ago and all that nonsense, well, shit. It's a bit of a blur. Half remembered promises and something about his safety. The whole weight of a goddamn building on him and the thought that that was the end.
And now this.
It's surreal to say the least. Quiet is needed. He would never have believed a town named Purgatory would be sleepy or small. A lot less of a lake of fire. Then again this is the newbie's assessment. At least they have a bar. And that bar has booze. The ice clinks in his glass as he sets it down.]
Uh. Hello to you too.
[The voice is not familiar. Nor the scent. He cannot fight the tension and the grip at his cane when it sounds like she has a gun.]
My name is Matt.
[And he's horribly, woefully, completely out of place.]
[Climate change is a bitch. Though if he stays long enough, he'll get to experience the other extreme when things get Hoth-level frozen.]
Right, yeah, sorry. Wynonna. [It's a name on the local's lips often enough to have been overheard, probably. And not usually spoken in the kindest of tones.
There's more than a little about her social skills to probably remind him of a certain Miss Jones. Definitely a similar ratio of whiskey to recklessness.]
Just figured someone should actually try talking to you before the whole town decides you're a serial killer. Which is totally unfair, our serial killers are all home-grown around here. [She's kidding, right? Right?]
[Trying to rid the immediate association between whiskey and a strong, independent woman is going to take more than a building falling on him. The flash of Miss Jones's memory is what keeps him more calm than he would be with a concealed weapon.]
Pleasure to meet you.
[...that's what a person not running would say. Ahem. Matt takes another sip of his drink.]
A....serial killer. [Just the way the words come out all smooth, casual. Just does not sit right. He still has the good sense to shrug and laugh a little.]
That would be the first time anyone's thought of me that way. [That he's aware of.] I'm not here to cause any trouble.
Well, it's the fist time anyone's ever been pleased to meet me, so I guess it's a night for firsts.
[There's a little shuffling and the sound of skin against warm leather, and a gun finding home in its holster at her hip.]
You're cute, so I'll take you at your word, Matty. [And Peacemaker's pretty convinced he's not a demon, so yay!] Lemme get your next round to make up for interrupting your drink.
[Somewhere in New York, Foggy is feeling a sense of foreboding that he can't explain. Matt no. No, Matt.]
[That either means that manners are dead and gone or Jessica Jones has a long lost sibling. Oh good. The gun is out of the way. Trust and believe that Matt makes a note of it's existence. Just in case.]
Ah, thank you. [The promise of more alcohol gets a sincere grin.] You uh usually welcome people this way, Wynonna?
[Tingling? Foreboding? For all his heightened senses and past blunders Matt...carries on the only way he knows how.]
[The barn was, in some ways, a better choice than the house. There was a bed made up out there, and it was cooler at night than the non-air-conditioned homestead. It's also where Wynonna stores her stashes of liquor and weapons.
It had taken a couple of hours (both ways) to get to the airport and back with John. And, yeah, it was on the bike. Once they'd gotten outside the city proper, she'd stopped to get Peacemaker out from the under-seat storage and sling it onto her waist, and there'd been ample rest stops for the sake of getting solid ground under John's feet for a few minutes here and there.
And one time for a Revenant she'd put down in a truck stop parking lot with a single shot.
They deserve beer and pizza after all that. And probably jet lag on John's part.]
[ well this is downright hospitable, innit? john isn't used to being treated like a guest, especially not one who doesn't even have to put down the bad guys. well, yet. he rolls up his sleeves when he sees the soul at the gas station, starting a banishing spell when her gun goes off and he actually gasps, his eyes popping open wide. well, that's one way to do it. ]
I'm gonna have to get me one of those.
[ soft, he's quiet for the ride back, holding to the sides of the bike and not even commenting about riding bitch. there's something off about this whole thing, unnatural even moreso than most curses are. the trip back to the farmhouse goes by mostly in a blur for john, maybe that plane ride really had gotten to him. he's a bit listless a moment, but when she addresses him he smiles easily enough. ]
Load me up, luv. I could eat a sodding wagon wheel.
[ and there were a few of them around, actually, so don't tempt him. ]
[There was, technically, an empty bedroom in the house, and if Wynonna were an emotionally stable person capable of moving on, Willa's bedroom would be a guest room by now. But it's still that creepy homage to the little girl her sister never really got to be.
She sets down both of the pies in easy reach, along with couple paper plates, and taking a slice of the pepperoni.]
So. I was thinking. We know the curse is breakable. It's right in the whole- clause. I take out the rest of Wyatt's kills with Peacemaker, and it's over.
Instead of you trying to find a loophole- what if you just found them. Sixty-some odd Revenants. [She's too tired to actually do the math, but there's a list, and a tally in the office. He can see that later.] Trapped in a few thousand square miles.
Can you track them? You find where the biggest groups of them are hanging out. And we make this curse our bitch before Waves is old enough to be pulled further in than she already is. [There might be some slight fudging on her part about her ultimate motivator for breaking this curse, beyond it just making her life suck a whole lot of ass. At least for now. Keeping Waverly from "aging in to heirhood" was... totally believable.]
It ends if I take them all out. I just have to track 65 more Revenants who are scattered from Banf to Montana, shoot them, and just- don't die in the process. If I match all of Wyatt's kills before something else takes me out and resurrects them all when Waves turns 27.
[She's got a slice of each type of pizza now, and has them sandwiched together in the closest thing you can get to a calzone in Purgatory.]
Every other heir's just gotten ganked before he could take them out. Because all they've had was Peacemaker and whatever their daddies taught them. I have more than that. I've got Doc, and Dolls, and a really kickass sheriff's deputy who's currently shctupping my sister and thus inclined to keep me alive and out of jail. And now I've got whatever you're willing to bring to the table.
I'm not saying stop trying to find loopholes- if there is one, I want it, but- shit. I feel like I could actually do this.
[This would be a lot more of a compelling argument without the pizza sauce on her chin. Maybe.]
[ wow that was information overload. and for him that's saying something. maybe it really is the jetlag, but he's tempted to ask her to slow down, even as his eyes zero in on the spot of sauce distractedly. ]
Don't get cocky, luv. It never ends well with demons.
[ he would know. he's the cockiest. john leans forward, close enough that he's invading her space. and then he wipes the sauce off with the back of his hand and lifts his eyebrows, brushing it off on the hay he's currently sitting on. ]
The problem with locator spells is it's almost impossible to mask yourself when you're dealing in psychics. Or in this case, demons with psychic powers. In other words: if we can find them, they can find us.
Okay. Maybe a little over-ambitious. [She slumps a little, and opens another bottle of beer. The sauce-move gets him a raised eyebrow. There are about a handful of Types of Men who'd still flirt with her after some of the stuff she's admitted to, and most of those types are the kind to handle with caution. Not that she handles anything with caution.]
What about something smaller-scale. More direct. Can you tell how many Revenants are left in Purgatory? [Most of them, she's assuming, fled when she killed Bobo. The ones still in and around the town are either dumb enough to think they can take her own, or just that damn good at hiding- probably a mix of the two, really.]
If I can keep the town clear, that gives everyone a safer base of operations. Plus whatever slipped through the gate when Willa- when that happened. [When she shot her own sister. Justifiable homicide, maybe- but sororicide isn't exactly an easy thing to process. Or get over. Or not soak yourself in guilt and whiskey over.
Speaking of.] "I'm getting us something stronger."
[ he's not flirting but he is to be handled with care. i.e. not handled at all. if she knows what's good for her which no one ever seems to around him. john sighs as he finishes his slice, leaning back on his bum and setting the beer next to him on the ground. he could fall asleep right here, he might while she's gone, honestly. he can think of a few different ways to do what she says, but it's always been easier to track activity than demons directly. safer, too. ]
I had Zed make us a map of all the recent incidents in the Ghost River Triangle. That should give us a place to start.
[ right back to the good old scry map. but he waves her off, if it's a drinking kind of night then it's not a magic kind of night. even if he were inclined to drink and spell after all the mistakes he'd made, he's too knackered from the flight to trust himself anyway. ]
I never turn down a drink from a bird in distress. Call it self-preservation instinct.
[She hasn't introduced John to all of hers yet. Waverly was unavoidable, Dolls and Nicole will probably hate him, and best to let him and Doc maybe.. she doesn't know... sniff each other through a closed door like cats?
She sets the bottle down after fetching it from a crate. Somebody buys in bulk and/or lifts the occasional box from Shorty's. At least she only got one bottle for the two of them.]
We start when the hangover fades, then. [She clinks her beer bottle against the whiskey, throws the rest of the weaker drink back]
I'm not in distress. [She flops back down onto a hay bale, leaning forward with her elbows resting against her knees] I am the distress. [She pats Peacemaker, shoved into the side of her boot and smiles with a confidence just this side of crazy. But then, she's learned to lean in to what people expect of her.]
[ he doesn't even notice the crate because his eyes have drifted closed, resting. the clink of her bottles starts them open again. he nods his agreement to her terms, there is always a certain clarity that comes along with being truly snockered. ]
Of course. [ john says blandly, draining his beer in preparation for something heavier as well. ] Which is why you brought in the calvary.
[ he touches his chest in indication, more joke than not. but there's something else lurking beneath the surface, probably jealousy for her ability to ask for help when she needs it honestly. ]
I'll take whatever help I can get if it keeps this curse away from my sister. [Right. The sister. The sweet little nerd all wrapped up in the cozy blanket of true love. There's a fire in Waverly that maybe Wynonna can't see in her baby sister, or maybe the sister- who'd corrected some of John's Latin grammar earlier that day- is a convenient explanation. There are Looks between her and the really-should-be-dead-guy in the cowboy hat that hint at something a little more important even than Waves. Something no one's quite willing to tell John about yet- maybe even ever. Because even if he can break this curse with a snap of his fingers, she'll put one of Peacemaker's bullets in him before she risks anyone knowing how to find her daughter.]
Just try not to pass out with a cigarette in your mouth. I wasn't making it up about this being wildfire season. And I do not want you meeting our fire department.
[ he doesn't really think this is about wynonna's sister, but he's also not here to play family counselor. he holds out his hand for the bottle even while his eyes narrow at her commentary. ]
Pseudo-Masonic demon hunters who dressed like plague doctors who are not my biggest fans. Or they were. There's a pretty high turnover rate for Purgatory first responders, so...
[She shrugs a little.] The Revenants mostly congregate in the biker bars. And Pussy Willow's. The firehouse is consecrated ground. Not as good as the Homestead's ammolite bed for keeping them away, but it's enough to make them itch, at least.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
momijizukamori
no subject
Date: 2018-08-16 10:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-08-16 10:33 pm (UTC)And after a stay in a Calgary hospital courtesy of a fake Canadian ID, how on Earth could Matt Murdock resist a town literally named Purgatory to spend his time recouping. I mean, really.
He won't even have to sign a postcard to Foggy if he wants to tell him he's alive. The postmark alone will be enough.
To bad the place lives up to its name a little too literally.
Which is why its local guardian devil is a little on guard when someone new is in town, white cane or not.
"Especially when he's got an ass like that," he might have overheard her say to Waverly when she excused herself from her spot at the bar to sit down at his table.
She smells like leather and whiskey, with notes of dried hay and dust- likely from a barn without any livestock (the smell of which does, unfortunately, cling a little to some of the other patrons at Shorty's). There's also a shock of something a lot more rare this side of the border- gunpowder.]
I hope you realized moving to this small of a town would mean being talked about a lot. Don't worry- I won't stay long, since talking to me for too long isn't gonna do you any favours.
[Don't mind her just kinda casually pointing Peacemaker at him under the table to see if the runes light up. Nope! Ok, not a demon. Cool. She's kind of counting on the whole blind guy factor to make this easier than it is normally. ]
no subject
Date: 2018-08-16 11:21 pm (UTC)And now this.
It's surreal to say the least. Quiet is needed. He would never have believed a town named Purgatory would be sleepy or small. A lot less of a lake of fire. Then again this is the newbie's assessment. At least they have a bar. And that bar has booze. The ice clinks in his glass as he sets it down.]
Uh. Hello to you too.
[The voice is not familiar. Nor the scent. He cannot fight the tension and the grip at his cane when it sounds like she has a gun.]
My name is Matt.
[And he's horribly, woefully, completely out of place.]
no subject
Date: 2018-08-16 11:33 pm (UTC)Right, yeah, sorry. Wynonna. [It's a name on the local's lips often enough to have been overheard, probably. And not usually spoken in the kindest of tones.
There's more than a little about her social skills to probably remind him of a certain Miss Jones. Definitely a similar ratio of whiskey to recklessness.]
Just figured someone should actually try talking to you before the whole town decides you're a serial killer. Which is totally unfair, our serial killers are all home-grown around here. [She's kidding, right? Right?]
no subject
Date: 2018-08-17 06:18 am (UTC)Pleasure to meet you.
[...that's what a person not running would say. Ahem. Matt takes another sip of his drink.]
A....serial killer. [Just the way the words come out all smooth, casual. Just does not sit right. He still has the good sense to shrug and laugh a little.]
That would be the first time anyone's thought of me that way. [That he's aware of.] I'm not here to cause any trouble.
no subject
Date: 2018-08-17 06:24 am (UTC)[There's a little shuffling and the sound of skin against warm leather, and a gun finding home in its holster at her hip.]
You're cute, so I'll take you at your word, Matty. [And Peacemaker's pretty convinced he's not a demon, so yay!] Lemme get your next round to make up for interrupting your drink.
[Somewhere in New York, Foggy is feeling a sense of foreboding that he can't explain. Matt no. No, Matt.]
no subject
Date: 2018-08-17 07:48 pm (UTC)Ah, thank you. [The promise of more alcohol gets a sincere grin.] You uh usually welcome people this way, Wynonna?
[Tingling? Foreboding? For all his heightened senses and past blunders Matt...carries on the only way he knows how.]
no subject
Date: 2018-08-17 10:09 pm (UTC)[The drink comes quickly enough, as does Wynonna's next round. It's a different brand than Jessica's usual poison, at least.]
Should I leave you to your drink, Matt? Or should I try to be a little more neighbourly?
for @nifties
Date: 2018-08-17 05:37 am (UTC)It had taken a couple of hours (both ways) to get to the airport and back with John. And, yeah, it was on the bike. Once they'd gotten outside the city proper, she'd stopped to get Peacemaker out from the under-seat storage and sling it onto her waist, and there'd been ample rest stops for the sake of getting solid ground under John's feet for a few minutes here and there.
And one time for a Revenant she'd put down in a truck stop parking lot with a single shot.
They deserve beer and pizza after all that. And probably jet lag on John's part.]
You want the pepperoni or the double-cheese?
no subject
Date: 2018-08-17 03:24 pm (UTC)I'm gonna have to get me one of those.
[ soft, he's quiet for the ride back, holding to the sides of the bike and not even commenting about riding bitch. there's something off about this whole thing, unnatural even moreso than most curses are. the trip back to the farmhouse goes by mostly in a blur for john, maybe that plane ride really had gotten to him. he's a bit listless a moment, but when she addresses him he smiles easily enough. ]
Load me up, luv. I could eat a sodding wagon wheel.
[ and there were a few of them around, actually, so don't tempt him. ]
no subject
Date: 2018-08-17 09:54 pm (UTC)She sets down both of the pies in easy reach, along with couple paper plates, and taking a slice of the pepperoni.]
So. I was thinking. We know the curse is breakable. It's right in the whole- clause. I take out the rest of Wyatt's kills with Peacemaker, and it's over.
Instead of you trying to find a loophole- what if you just found them. Sixty-some odd Revenants. [She's too tired to actually do the math, but there's a list, and a tally in the office. He can see that later.] Trapped in a few thousand square miles.
Can you track them? You find where the biggest groups of them are hanging out. And we make this curse our bitch before Waves is old enough to be pulled further in than she already is. [There might be some slight fudging on her part about her ultimate motivator for breaking this curse, beyond it just making her life suck a whole lot of ass. At least for now. Keeping Waverly from "aging in to heirhood" was... totally believable.]
no subject
Date: 2018-08-19 02:51 am (UTC)Well, sure I could, but that just makes it someone else's problem, doesn't it? [ namely, her offspring. ]
no subject
Date: 2018-08-19 03:09 am (UTC)[She's got a slice of each type of pizza now, and has them sandwiched together in the closest thing you can get to a calzone in Purgatory.]
Every other heir's just gotten ganked before he could take them out. Because all they've had was Peacemaker and whatever their daddies taught them. I have more than that. I've got Doc, and Dolls, and a really kickass sheriff's deputy who's currently shctupping my sister and thus inclined to keep me alive and out of jail. And now I've got whatever you're willing to bring to the table.
I'm not saying stop trying to find loopholes- if there is one, I want it, but- shit. I feel like I could actually do this.
[This would be a lot more of a compelling argument without the pizza sauce on her chin. Maybe.]
no subject
Date: 2018-08-19 04:31 am (UTC)Don't get cocky, luv. It never ends well with demons.
[ he would know. he's the cockiest. john leans forward, close enough that he's invading her space. and then he wipes the sauce off with the back of his hand and lifts his eyebrows, brushing it off on the hay he's currently sitting on. ]
The problem with locator spells is it's almost impossible to mask yourself when you're dealing in psychics. Or in this case, demons with psychic powers. In other words: if we can find them, they can find us.
no subject
Date: 2018-08-19 04:53 am (UTC)What about something smaller-scale. More direct. Can you tell how many Revenants are left in Purgatory? [Most of them, she's assuming, fled when she killed Bobo. The ones still in and around the town are either dumb enough to think they can take her own, or just that damn good at hiding- probably a mix of the two, really.]
If I can keep the town clear, that gives everyone a safer base of operations. Plus whatever slipped through the gate when Willa- when that happened. [When she shot her own sister. Justifiable homicide, maybe- but sororicide isn't exactly an easy thing to process. Or get over. Or not soak yourself in guilt and whiskey over.
Speaking of.] "I'm getting us something stronger."
no subject
Date: 2018-08-20 06:13 pm (UTC)I had Zed make us a map of all the recent incidents in the Ghost River Triangle. That should give us a place to start.
[ right back to the good old scry map. but he waves her off, if it's a drinking kind of night then it's not a magic kind of night. even if he were inclined to drink and spell after all the mistakes he'd made, he's too knackered from the flight to trust himself anyway. ]
I never turn down a drink from a bird in distress. Call it self-preservation instinct.
no subject
Date: 2018-08-20 08:32 pm (UTC)[She hasn't introduced John to all of hers yet. Waverly was unavoidable, Dolls and Nicole will probably hate him, and best to let him and Doc maybe.. she doesn't know... sniff each other through a closed door like cats?
She sets the bottle down after fetching it from a crate. Somebody buys in bulk and/or lifts the occasional box from Shorty's. At least she only got one bottle for the two of them.]
We start when the hangover fades, then. [She clinks her beer bottle against the whiskey, throws the rest of the weaker drink back]
I'm not in distress. [She flops back down onto a hay bale, leaning forward with her elbows resting against her knees] I am the distress. [She pats Peacemaker, shoved into the side of her boot and smiles with a confidence just this side of crazy. But then, she's learned to lean in to what people expect of her.]
no subject
Date: 2018-08-23 01:32 am (UTC)Of course. [ john says blandly, draining his beer in preparation for something heavier as well. ] Which is why you brought in the calvary.
[ he touches his chest in indication, more joke than not. but there's something else lurking beneath the surface, probably jealousy for her ability to ask for help when she needs it honestly. ]
no subject
Date: 2018-09-06 11:06 am (UTC)There are Looks between her and the really-should-be-dead-guy in the cowboy hat that hint at something a little more important even than Waves. Something no one's quite willing to tell John about yet- maybe even ever. Because even if he can break this curse with a snap of his fingers, she'll put one of Peacemaker's bullets in him before she risks anyone knowing how to find her daughter.]
Just try not to pass out with a cigarette in your mouth. I wasn't making it up about this being wildfire season. And I do not want you meeting our fire department.
no subject
Date: 2018-09-14 07:50 pm (UTC)Why? Who are they? Revenants?
no subject
Date: 2018-09-15 01:23 am (UTC)[She shrugs a little.] The Revenants mostly congregate in the biker bars. And Pussy Willow's. The firehouse is consecrated ground. Not as good as the Homestead's ammolite bed for keeping them away, but it's enough to make them itch, at least.