entrancelogs | [open + closed] I can't understand, no, I can't understand

Entry tags:

[open + closed] I can't understand, no, I can't understand

Who: Evelyn O'Connell & You
Where: Tartarus
When: Duration of the event
Rating: PG-13
Summary: In an effort to locate her son and get to safety, Evelyn encounters a heap-ton more dangers than desired.
The Story:

Out & About

[This place feels eerily familiar, only in the way any strange place can when one has spent a long time traveling between the shadows of people's memories. Events long-passed have run together by now, though the environment they all currently found themselves in - Evelyn in her nightclothes and robe, of all things - reminds her strongly of another time when manifestations of their true selves emerged to torment residents. Something about the shifting walls covered in dead faces, the muffled music emanating from every corner and wall, the knee-jerk quality of this reality. Arqa Block is emblazoned on the columns at certain intersections and she wishes the reference made sense.

Not that it matters.

Armed with a Beretta and a clip with too few bullets for comfort, Evelyn moves through the halls barefoot, occasionally stopping to check her communicator in the hopes that it might pick up an adequate signal for correspondence.]

Oh, for the love of- come on.

[It rarely has enough strength to reach another person, or hold it for long. She continues in spite of that, far too on edge from the occasional distant screeching, and tightens her grip on her handgun.]

Safety

[Once she's located the primary foyer and find it designated as a safe zone Evelyn is keen to help anyone suffering from wounds inflicted by those creatures on the upper floors, more than happy to set aside the gun in favour of sacrificing fabric from her robe for bandages.

Aware that she does not have the luxury of being able to risk her skin the way she normally would, she lingers here longer than she does on the other levels, aware of her current precarious position in Wonderland.]

Are you all right?

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[ Even if this isn't the actual guy she knows, it looks enough like him that, yeah, she doesn't need to see it. Ideally, he wouldn't have wanted her to watch at all--what he does, he's very good at, but it's ugly. He remembers Karen, in the diner, shaking with fear--not at the thugs he'd killed, but at him.

He looks over his shoulder at her request, and nods, kneeling down on the body's back to retrieve the knife, testing the blade with a thumb before handing it over.

And, since she brought it up... ] Nice piece.

[He would be surprised to know that she's seen worse.

In any event, Frank hands her the knife without question and she nods her thanks. She tries not to look at the blade. It reminds her of a fishing outing and lunch on a warm day, years ago, but will serve her better to use in place of her firearm. Those few bullets are a commodity they can't afford to waste right now.

Evelyn is just fixing to tuck the handgun away in one of her caftan pockets when he compliments it, and the civility is so shocking that she blinks at him before offering it for inspection.]

Might be a little old-fashioned for a man of your sensibilities,

[she huffs a laugh, aware that modern handguns carry considerably more rounds.]

Don't suppose I need to show you how to use that. [ He doesn't want to imagine a nice lady seeing worse. Much less that she can handle a knife.

He takes the gun almost with a sense of relief--something that anchors him to normalcy, to the stuff that's made his life for 15 years. ]

Old? Maybe. But the old stuff has more character.

Different from the mass-produced lowest-bidder shit we sometimes got.

[She watches the way he takes the gun the familiar way an archaeologist would a proffered artefact: with something akin to reverence, or comfort. The same way she handles potsherds and shawabtis in the field. She conveniently neglects to answer his query about the knife.

More character. Evelyn laughs again, with no offence meant, and she isn't quick to disagree - most of the firearms she's seen in the hands of people from the early two-thousands tend to have a rigid, block-shaped sameness to them.]

I like to think a lot of older things have more character.

[Herself included.]

Uniforms were certainly more attractive. I remember the soldiers looking very sharp during the parade on Armistice Day.

Anything that's survived any amount of time has something special.

[Just for surviving. Just for making it through. He's still half-distracted by the gun, turning it over in his hands before surrendering it back to her.]

Ma'am. All due respect, but you haven't seen a Marine in dress blues. [Nothing personal, but they look damn sharp. If he says so himself.]

[No doubt he doesn't mean it in the metaphorical, the poetic sense. Such things seem out of theme for his dogma. But as a survivor of this place she smiles quietly, accepting the gun and pocketing it.]

I'll reserve my judgement, then.

[Far be it from Evelyn to discourage men from wearing uniforms. She isn't ashamed to admit that the aesthetic can be extremely attractive.]

As both a British citizen and a person from 1935, I may be somewhat biased.

All the better when you admit I'm right.

[Bring on the challenge. He almost wishes he had a picture to show her, so they could settle this right here. And keep their minds off of what just happened. ]

What the hell you doing out here, anyway? [Of course, the answer to the same question directed at him should be clear. But she's a nice lady. Who, he'll politely remind her, has already died FOUR TIMES. She should be, he doesn't fucking know, wrapped in bubble wrap and under armed guard.

Well, she's at least got the armed guard part, now. ]

[It'll be a cold day in Hell when she admits to that.]

I thought I'd take a midnight stroll through a monster tower in my nightgown, Frank. What do you think?

[Sarcasm is not usually her favoured method of communication, but he's been rather obtuse in the past about a great many things, and therefore she feels it is a warranted use of tone.]

I would have gone straight to the lobby if I wasn't looking for my son.

[It's cold in here--does that count?

He would absolutely critique her choice of ensemble, because that is NOT appropriate monster-fighting garb, until she says the next part. And any humor drops from his voice, and face. ]

Your son's out here. [He is all about the obvious.] Where have you already looked?

[It isn't until she finishes speaking that something changes in his bearing, and she can see it happen instantly. Relieved by the lack of aggrieved nonsense he would no doubt offer about her attire or presence up here, Evelyn can settle into something resembling business much easier.]

Almost everything above. He would know to head down- [A strategy employed by many an archaeologist and their assorted children if the latter ever got lost on temple excavation site.] -so I've been taking it floor by floor.

His name is Alex. He's eight.

Eight. Shit. [About Frank Jr's. age. He doesn't want to think about Frank, or Lisa, in a place like this. ]

Better this level than...one of the others. [The one with the changelings, the little kids, the ones he'd been afraid he'd fuck up, kill a real kid by mistake. ]

He's clever.

[She replies determinedly, glancing back down another hall. Alex got the best parts of his parents, the intelligence and (sometimes) foolhardy bravery. He had gotten through Imhotep, and the oasis of Ahm Shere. He would be fine.

Evelyn has to keep telling herself that to believe it.]

But I intend to search every floor until I reach the bottom. [She fixes him with a hard look.] Are you coming with me?

[ He's not going to argue with that--he doesn't know the kid, and if anyone had asked him about Lisa or Frank Jr in the same circumstance, he'd have said almost the same thing.

He narrows his eyes at her look. ]

What the hell do you think?

I think I apparently don't have much say in the matter.

[Evelyn understands the benefit of moving in small groups, the safety inherent, because she isn't a simpleton and neither does she have a death wish. What she didn't ask for was a bodyguard, but every man with a gun in a mile radius seems to have gotten it into their heads that they need to be the one to put themselves on the line.

Fine. She can handle a private army.

Evelyn turns on her heel.]

You can tell me about the responses you received to your network announcement while we walk.

Not really.

[Sure, he knows she has a gun and a knife, and he'd really hate to have to take them from her in a dangerous place like this, but he'll do it if she tries to get rid of him.]

....[Really. Not the thing he wants to talk about right now. ]

Met your boyfriend.

Apparently.

[ He can diddly-darn try to take her weapons away from her. :) ]

Yes, [she replies drily, rounding a corner. She may be barefoot, but there's something oddly soothing about it, more so than normal. Evelyn is most at ease in boots and the part of her that is very, very old is pleased to be so tactile.]

Dan informed me that you said some very unsavoury things, and then he clocked you in the jaw, and then you had words over drinks. [Not unkindly, she adds,] In the future I would appreciate more discretion from you, but as I understand it, prudence does not appear to be your modus operandi.

[ He took down Daredevil. Twice. She really think she's better than the Devil of Hell's Kitchen?

Besides, he'd hate to have to hurt a lady. ]

One hit. He got one hit in. Because I let him. [OBVIOUSLY. And please to notice Frank did not retaliate. He's not some out-of-control monster.]

I needed information. Fast. [He shrugs. But yeah, discretion is not his thing.]

[It's difficult to take a lady's personal items when your kneecaps are shattered by .32 Automatic rounds.]

Mhm.

[A disinterested hum. It's certainly possible he could have killed Dan, just as it is possible that Dan could have killed him, but Dan didn't drop in on Frank Castle's tea party to throw punches hither and yon. His skills lean heavily into persuasion, and he's very good at what he does.]

I take it you don't believe I'm a threat now, or I might have ended up like our friend down the hall.

['Difficult', yes. 'Impossible'? Nope. Frank Castle does not fear the mere 'difficult'.

Dan also didn't drink any tea, so there went Frank's whole friendly set up. ]

I wouldn't have killed you back there. Or turned my back on you. [Proof.]

Some guy named Joel--you should have given me his name, too. [Sideeye. Holding out on him?]

Oh, that's reassuring.

[There's another surprise.

Evelyn actually glances to him, just as interested. Her relationship with Joel is complicated for a number of reasons - largely due to the man inadvertently trodding all over her trauma and realising it after the fact - but she does consider him a friend. He rarely goes on the network, however, which is why it is a shock he responded to Frank.]

I gave you the contacts who could most accurately corroborate the answers to the questions you asked. If you wanted a laundry list of character references, you should have said so. What did he say?

It should be. [Not a lot of people he'd trust when they're holding a gun, and they're pissed at him and he turns his back.]

Yeah, fine. Okay. [So she was literal. Just like him. He can't really complain.]. He said if you'd already died four times, you would've found a way to let someone know before you died that it was the last one. [Aaaaaand then the conversation took a distinct downward turn, but she doesn't need to know that.]

He isn't wrong. I would have.

[Evelyn doesn't like to mince her words, and as a proponent of straightforward speech would much prefer it if everyone fell back on candour more often.

She briefly entertains the grim thought of carrying a small piece of paper on her person that says something to the effect of If you find my body, please be warned this was my fifth death, but decides she can spend time on professional calling card decisions later.]

But in the spirit of being perfectly honest, I haven't really had to think about those sorts of things until more recently.

[See, that just proves Frank's point. Straight talk, and cut through the bullshit.

They come to a corridor branching off to the left and he waits for her to choose. ] .

Can't imagine anyone enjoys thinking about their death the first time. [Much less..... ]

[In fairness, honesty goes much farther if one tries to catch flies with honey, not vinegar.

Evelyn pauses at the juncture and mulls over his statement, worrying her lip and trying to backtrack furiously to make sense of the halls she took to get here. Ultimately she turns left, fueled by the need to break the cycle of endless corridors teeming with monstrosities.]

The first one didn't hurt much.

[She says idly, comforted by his familiarity with terrible things so as to not be entirely put off by the subject. Often it is easier for her to talk about the dead. To talk about her deaths as though they were curiosities she found practising Egyptology, instead of deeply intimate things.]

My throat was slit. I wasn't alive when the killer broke my rib cage and removed my heart.

[ The people Frank's gone after respond well to bullets.

His eyes slide over to her as she speaks, before returning to scan the path ahead of them. She doesn't need to tell him this, any of this. And he hasn't died here, yet, but he was as close as you got after Central Park, close enough to know. ]

Asshole who did it still here? [Because Frank can make sure the guy 'apologizes'. Fluently.]

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