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?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Did I say that?

[Evelyn states plainly, and if looks could set clothing on fire he'd be patting out his jacket right about now.]

The Mirror side isn't accessible to us save for rare occasion. Sometimes events - different from this one - will permit Mirrors to cross from their side to ours for the duration. You and your Mirror cannot be on the same side at the same time. When they cross, you are instantly there. I know. I've seen it.

[No sojourn to the other side has been particularly enjoyable.]

On rarer occasion an event will permit both you and your Mirror to exist in the same place at the same time. I've only met my Mirror once.

[Worse creatures down here than you have tried to set him on fire, Evelyn. Honestly, he can't figure out why she's so pissed. He is trying to keep her alive. He'd think she'd be on board with that program. ]

Yeah, okay. Got it.

[Nothing he's done has been particularly enjoyable. ] I'll keep my eye out.

[A surly, terse response for the aggression that matches his own - it's almost as though he can't entirely comprehend why someone would react in kind. But she isn't being fair: Frank is still new to this place, and is adjusting to rules and systems that his world does not employ. Logic-breaking, reality-bending environments and Evelyn was equally wary when she first arrived, six years ago.

For a long moment she waffles, inhaling deeply and sighing before reining in her temper.]

...I'm not trying to dissuade you from what you want to do. What you're good at. I'm trying to make you understand that Wonderland does not adhere to reason as you know it. [Evelyn looks to him, imploring.] Every Tuesday the books rearrange themselves in the library, switching sections. The closets are enchanted. We're here in this architectural abomination.

Let me help you. You're a military man, you can't be so proud as to think walking through this place blind is a better option.

Yeah. We don't have shit like this [ A wave taking in this shitty goddam level and the whole of Tartarus, while he's at it. ] where I'm from.

[ For a long moment, he does nothing but walk forward, eyes darting from side to side, listening for anything that might be following them. It's almost as though he's ignoring everything she said.

Until he turns, abruptly, stopping short to confront her. ]Help me? How the hell are you going to help me? You're standing in the way every time I try to goddam do anything.

[Is the frustration obvious?]

[It's clear from the moment he steps around her that he's stopped paying attention and Evelyn feels the ire in her grow to astronomical levels. She could have handled the doppelganger on her own, she could have gotten through the rest of this floor without breaking a sweat and he seems to have gotten it into his head that she requires an armed guard at all times, that she is somehow incapable of doing anything at all.

He's a bull-headed wrecking ball and defies all expectations of reasonable behaviour, surveying the hall as though a small squadron of murderous doubles might barrel down it at any second. Not registering. Not listening. When he finally turns back to her the fist at her side unclenches, schooled by years of receiving similar egregious posturing from men in her professional field, and, at the time, unable to do anything about it. The calm before the storm.

It's all of a second before her palm connects with his face in a brusque, eye-opening slap, nowhere near the splintering hook she could use to snap his nose but strong enough to startle.]

Listen here, you enormous, stubborn ass. If you have any confidence in your ability to adapt to new circumstances I recommend you get it through your thick skull that you are not the end-all, be-all of protection and invulnerability no matter how many commendations you've had pinned to your chest. Pull your head out of whatever hole you've inadvertently stuck it in and shape up.

Edited 2017-10-12 03:29 (UTC)

[He hadn't stopped paying attention. He was focusing on his damn job. When he rounded on her it was everything that's been building up in the last few days--the helplessness, the uselessness, the goddam strangeness.

It's shaken all that he'd thought he was, the rest of who he was, who he'd had left after his family was killed. He was the one who went after the targets everyone else was too afraid to, to weak to.

He's definitely been hit harder--she was no Wilson Fisk. But he'd been ready for that, body and mind. Neither was ready now.

It's simple reflex that grabs her wrist, but he stops himself there, not returning the hit, twisting that arm behind her back. Just holding it, staring down at her. ]

I'm trying. I'm goddam trying.

[Evelyn could have foreseen the likelihood of him catching her arm and it's only fair, given that she did just slap what appears to be a mild amount of sense into him.]

Try harder.

[She doesn't pull away. So long as he has her wrist, she has his attention.]

I don't think I need to tell you that your well-meaning, if heavy-handed, attempts at ingratiating yourself to the public eye haven't exactly been warmly received. I understand there is comfort in working alone. It's less messy. But we're packed here like sardines and one hole in the tin spoils the entire bunch. I don't want to fight you, Frank. Just meet me in the damn middle.

[If he grips her wrist any longer, he might bruise it, so he drops it, as if it was scalding. Goddammit, he's here to prevent her from being hurt, not being the one fucking doing it.

There's a lot he could argue in what she said--he wasn't 'ingratiating' himself. He doesn't give a shit what people think of him. It can't be worse than what half of New York does. He didn't care then, either, because he had a mission, and even if they hated him for it, he was cleaning up Hell's Kitchen. ]

Fine. Where's the goddam middle.

[He sounds truculent enough. He doesn't do surrender well. But it's an honest question--his life has been so black and white for so long, that he can't see any shade of gray. ]

[There's the rub: Frank doesn't have to care what people think of him, but he needs to start getting used to the fact that it matters in a place where he can't just disappear in a crowd, or pry up the nearest manhole in the street to escape.

Evelyn rubs at her wrist distractedly, because it's almost as though he expects her to pull out a map and point out "The Middle" in a convenient location nearby. It's never that simple.]

It starts with listening. Instead of- of running roughshod over everything and everyone, instead of just reacting. You want to keep me safe? Treat me like a person, not a parcel you can move from location to location, or you're no better than the man you put two bullets into down the hall.

[Before he can interject - because he undoubtedly will - Evelyn holds up a hand.]

You want to be effective here? You need to reevaluate your strategy for a war zone you aren't familiar with. Make enemies all you like, so long as you make allies to shore up your woefully undeveloped defences. Talk with people, not at them. Where the Hell is the man I spoke to a week ago, Frank? The one whose commanding officer deceived him? The one who wanted to be my best goddamn friend?

[Fine. Great. So he doesn't have to, but he needs to, care. Exhibit A as to this fucked up place and its fucked up logic.

He would actually appreciate a map to the Middle, preferably with GPS coordinates and an exfil strategy. That he could actually handle. What she's asking....?]

I--[Yeah, she's damn right he's going to try to interject. Comparing him with the creep he just killed? Low blow. That alone shuts him up. ]

Right here. I'm right goddam here.

[Right here, and, currently breathing hard, staring over her shoulder. Goddam but she throws everything back in his face. ]

I don't know what dictionary you got your definition for "friend" out of, but trust is a valuable component of that. Trust is supposed to go both ways.

[Low blow? The truth hurts, Frank.

Based on the way his jaw tenses, the way he determinedly looks past her, she's struck a nerve. Good, it serves him right.]

I can't trust you to protect me - a claim of which I have no real, substantiated evidence except your word - if you can't trust me to know what I'm talking about. I have every reason to be sceptical of you. I gave you all the information you asked for, and you went to the network with an incendiary inquisition that cast more scrutiny on me than I already had just for being honest.

If you want me to put my faith in your ability to keep me from dying again, you've got a lot of ground to cover. I hope you're a quick study.

Now we're talking goddam dictionaries.

[ What else should he expect from a librarian? ]

Oh, so I just killed a guy who was trying to take you out--because you told me to--and now you're saying you can't trust me?

Did I wait too long? Did I not do it fast enough for you?

[Seriously. He'd thought that whole thing was a step in the right direction for them. That he could at least put that in the 'proved' column.

He shifts on his feet, restless, agitated. ] Okay. Yeah. Okay. So you don't want my help. Okay. [He jerks his head down the corridor.] So go on. Get out of here.

[It isn't about the expediency of the killing, Hell, it isn't about the killing at all. Evelyn was seconds away from putting a new hole in that double's head when Frank entered the corridor and she wasn't about to argue over "who gets to shoot the scary doppelganger" when there are bigger problems at hand.

Once again, Frank Castle proves himself incapable of listening, an act which might have done him some good, because then he might have asked meaningful questions, might know that she is not a librarian at all.

But Evelyn barely hears him, and not for lack of trying - more egotistical posturing, no doubt, men are always throwing their weight around - but because as he critiques his own performance, she sees another person turn down their hall behind him, silver glinting in one hand. As he self-denigrates and snarls, the man in the crisp, three-piece suit, the neatly-coiffed hair, and the thin smile walks toward them. As Frank shoos her like some sort of stray cat Evelyn is already dropping her knife and drawing her gun and stepping to his left for a clear shot.

Please trust me when I tell you that if I see you again, I will put a bullet between your eyes.

I appreciate the courtesy of a warning, and I look forward to it.

She squeezes the trigger and follows through on her promise. Hannibal crumples immediately. When the sudden spike of righteous anger subsides almost as quickly as it came Evelyn lowers the gun and looks at him.]

You're welcome.

[He totally would have handled that, Evelyn. The only reason the doppelganger got as far as it did was because he was so distracted by having to defend himself.

All he really sees is her drawing her gun, and it takes half a heartbeat to realize she's not drawing it at him--he's that on edge, that wary, that it had seemed a plausible thought. He was insisting he's her friend, and he's the one that can't accept the concept, can't even trust that Evelyn wouldn't just drill him with a round just to shut him up, shut him out.

She clearly doesn't expect a thank you--she cut him off with the 'you're welcome', hot and sarcastic, foreclosing that whole branch of niceties, at least as far as he knew it.

He's got too much on his mind to process around anyone, right now. So he gathers what's left of his composure, checking the load of his pistol. ] Son's name is Alex, right?

[He doesn't wait too long for confirmation, turning on his heel, stepping over the fallen body. ]

[That's the problem, isn't it? He doesn't trust that she wouldn't shoot him - she would never, unless he intended to harm her, unless he tried to kill her - and that alone should serve as a glaring reason for Evelyn's own reticence. He doesn't trust her. He doesn't know her. And he refuses to.

Evelyn doesn't expect gratitude because she knows it's not something he would offer. Something, something, pride.

She stoops to collect the blade she dropped before, slipping it into her pocket with the handgun and only pausing by Hannibal's body to pry the strange, curved knife from his hand. Recognising it with horror as the one she saw him use to gut Will open like a filet she drops it immediately, straightening and catching up.]

Yes.

[She replies quietly, not so adamantly vocal as she was only minutes prior. Had the double not come down the hall, had she walked away like Frank suggested, she doesn't think he would have really let her go on her own for longer than a minute before tracking her.

Baffling to think that the man who trusted her with what happened to his family won't trust her with anything else.]

He's blonde. Probably in his pyjamas.

[He would absolutely have tracked her, almost as soon as she'd gotten out of sight. Just to be able to move without her asking those probing, too sharp questions.

He hears something in the tone of her voice, as he's walking away that stops him--the thinness to the timbre of her voice, with that 'yes' and the the clatter of metal on pavement.

He has to turn around, at that, and he's pretty sure she's going to misinterpret his question, but he's going to ask it anyway. ]

What's wrong?

[Erasing the event from the darkest corner of her mind has proven a fruitless effort, and so the memories are often boxed up, wrapped in twine and tucked away in shadowy, metaphorical closets. He had spun the ring of the blade on his finger and back into his palm, secure, watching her make the mistake picking up a short dagger from the sideboard.

Frank turns sharply, almost frowning at her, and it takes her a moment to realise that he must be referencing the sound. Evelyn opens her mouth to inform him that nothing is wrong and immediately swallows the lie, because she's bloody awful at them and her brother has always said so.]

...the knife he was carrying.

[No sense in clarifying who he is, since the body is only a few feet away. She should have brought a gun to Hannibal's flat three years ago.]

Why I shot him. He was the killer the other man covered for. [She huffs, and the sound isn't quite a laugh.] It's the same knife he used to kill me.

[ He steps closer--though he'd intended to make a clean break here, to head off, find her son, and maybe that, if he could do it, would heal this...whatever the hell he kept doing wrong. ]

It's not the same knife. It just looks like it. Nothing here is real. [It doesn't mean it's not dangerous. He knows that all too fucking well.

He's almost closed the distance between them, placing one boot over the knife, covering it. ] You're not dead. Right now, you're not dead. And this fucker is. [A kick with his other boot, to prove the point. ] And your son is out there and he needs you.

[She knows - deep, in the well of her, and in the part that knows this place like the back of her own hand - that these doubles and the objects they carry are nothing but facsimiles, crude representations of the people they are attempting to be for the sake of deception. But Evelyn last saw this face contorted in dispassionate rage as she died, alone but for the person who had already become a ghost.

She isn't invulnerable either, reminded of it acutely when Frank steps back into her space to cover one afflicting image only to give another a post-mortem boot. There are only so many times she can die before wondering what it's taking from her, what it's already taken without her knowing. How many times has Frank had to tell himself that he's not dead?

Evelyn reaches up to absently pat the breast pocket of his jacket, a wordless indicator of thanks for the reminder, and tears herself away from the body.]

You said you were a Marine.

[She sets to moving again, reaching for a distraction in the disquiet.]

What did you do?

[ It's different for Frank. Despite what the damn demon thought, he didn't have a death wish. He wasn't suicidal. He just wasn't so goddam in love with living as he'd been a few months ago, when he stood on a threshold of a normal, perfect life.

All he wanted now was, if he was going to die, it meant something, and it changed the balance of good and evil in the world. ]

Yeah. [He doesn't know what she's asking but maybe she just needs words to fill up some space, cover over things she doesn't want to think. ] Force Recon. Sniper. Iraq. Afghanistan. Bunch of other places. Some places I can't talk about. [Sure, OpSec wasn't a thing in goddam Wonderland, but it's a matter of honor.]

[The dialogue serves as an occupier to keep herself moving, yes, but the equally practical application is that of better knowing someone.

What she assumes is a shortening of Force Reconnaissance is not a term with which Evelyn is familiar - presumably it's a subordinate sect to his branch, but she isn't particularly well-versed in the American military hierarchy. Sniper - superior marksmanship, intelligence work, infiltration. No wonder he believes himself singularly qualified to keep an eye on her.

The countries he mentions are more up her alley; anyone with a passing interest in archaeology or politics knows about the Arab Revolt.]

My father served in the second Anglo-Afghan War. Rifle Brigade near Kabul. [Evelyn turns down a set of stairs, glancing to him briefly.] I've never been there myself, but I visited Iraq briefly when it was still a State. Most of my work is west of the Arabian Peninsula.

What kind of work does a librarian do in that part of the world? [He hadn't seen any English-language books outside the FOBs. ] Maybe shit was different back then.

[Like...really different.]

I'm not a librarian.

[Not anymore, at any rate. The library here is more necessity than select choice. As skilled as she is at it, she certainly doesn't miss coding and cataloging the papers collection at the Museum of Antiquities - stuffy administrative work never suited her.]

I'm an archaeologist, specialising in Egyptology and linguistics. I grew up in and around Cairo when we weren't in London.

[Frank will never get this about other people. Secret identities. Hidden pasts. It's all just so...weird. He figures no one can spend three minutes with him without knowing everything important about him. That's how it should be with all people. ]

Yeah, not a lot of call for that here. Or back home, any more.

[Not that he's been much more useful himself here.]

[In fairness, Frank never asked. He assumed. It isn't the first time someone has supposed that her self-appointed position here is the same as the one she works back home, but Evelyn is frequently obliging when it comes to gentle corrections. She prefers immediate honesty.]

I had to find a place for myself here.

[With the unspoken suggestion that Frank could do something similar. Evelyn doesn't linger on it.]

I would be lying if I said I didn't miss it. [Desperately. Constantly.] Egypt is more my home than England ever was.

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