Participants:
| Scene Title | Ungrateful Lot |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Cooper tries his best, but the Resistance is a hard bunch to please |
| Date | November 20, 2017 |
Resistance HQ
“I'm on the highway to hell!”
The stereo is blasting as black van speeds down the road, sides painted with an epic wizardly battle… oh! And a dragon. The driver’s beanie covered head is bopping to the music, hands drum on the steering wheel. “On the highway to hell,” belts out Thomas Cooper to the music, really getting into it. “Highway to hell. I'm on the highway to hell.” The irony of the song is not lost on this former homeland agent, still he sings along with enthusiasm… because one does not simply listen to AC/DC… you sing with it. With Gusto.
Even if that singing isn’t that great and a bit offkey.
“No stop signs. Speed limit.” Glancing around first, Thomas Cooper takes the turn off without slowing. “Nobody's gonna slow me down.” The man had a talent for driving that came from years on the force and defencive driving classes. Serpentine courses, fake civilians, and drill sergeant like instructors. “Like a wheel. Gonna spin it.” All terrain tires bounce along a much rougher terrain as he approached the latest hideout for the Resistance. “Nobody's gonna mess me around.”
There is a cloud of dust as a he comes to a skidding halt, the van fishtailing a bit. Even though he shuts off the van, Cooper is still singing as he swings out of the van, “Hey, Satan. Payin' my dues.” He winks at one of the guard who glare flatly at him and his arrival, hand waving dust away from his face. “Playin' in a rockin' band. Hey, mamma.” Reaching into the van he yanks out a full pack and a few rifles. “Look at me. I'm on the way to the promised land.”
Approaching the guard, Cooper is giving a bright smile. “Chuuuck!” Was that the man’s name? He was bad with names. “Where they set up mess? Got some goodies!” The guard doesn’t give the man the pleasure of hearing his voice, simply pointing in a random direction to get the man away from him as soon as possible. “You see the boss, tell her I LOVE what she did to the Magic Mobile. Huge improvement on those dirt roads. Didn’t get stuck this time.” Veronica was still giving him shit for that. “I’d give her a kiss, if I didn’t think Eli would gut me from multiple directions at the same time.”
Thomas gives Chuck a mock salute and turns on his heel and heads that direction still humming that same song. “Highway to hell…” He sings softly as he winds his way to the camp kitchen, a place that can be broken down and built up again in a moments notice.
Tucked in the corner of the mobile kitchen, standing amongst a mass of delicate looking glass and monstrous tangles of tubing, Luther Bellamy examines a distillery setup. A scowl of impatience sits on his features and he's hunched into a crouch by a converted metal drum, like a dog waiting for a treat he knows he must earn but is too stubborn to perform for it. He's already caught the sound of Cooper calling out "Chuuuuck" although, arguably, Luther has likely heard the noisy engine of the van before the noisier man who drives it.
Still, Luther remains crouched gargoylesque by the distillery drum, back turned to the entryway of the mess. Perhaps, he thinks, if he's silent and stony enough, Cooper will miss him entirely on his way through.
The open layout of the area makes that unlikely.
Fat chance really, that coat is rather distinct. Hard to miss by the smaller man as he waltz’s in. “Bell-ah-me!” Cooper calls out to Luther, like a man who’s seen a best buddy. “Dude. Who is your favorite smuggler?”
The pack is dropped on one of the sawhorse tables that was hastily put together. The board bouncing and flexing a bit with the impact. “If you say the name of anyone but me, dude, I will be hurt,” he comments lightly, sending a puppy-dog eyed look at the man, as he digs through the pack. Cans are placed down, various vegetables and fruit. Is that a can of chocolate pudding? Those were not as important, tho. (Okay, maybe the pudding.)
“Because!” Cooper crows and slams a bottle down on the table with a shit-eating grin. “Look what I scored.” The bottle of whiskey isn’t a major brand, but living in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, a person can’t be picky.
Lynette reaches around Cooper from behind, plucking up the whiskey to look at the label. Because she needs to know how low her alcohol standards have become. Very, is the answer, given that she gives the bottle a dismissive groan even as she cracks it open.
"I don't know, Thomas," she says, sighing heavily as she pours herself a generous helping into a tin mug, "find me a decent pair of Louboutins and we'll see." Apparently, she can still manage to be picky. Setting the bottle back down, she also sits at the table and looks over at Luther. "Is it drinkable today? Or are we going to use it to fuel Nancy again?"
With his back turned to Cooper and appearing busy tweaking the screws and switches of the distillery, Luther schools his expression to a more neutral tweak before he turns to face down the former HomeSec agent turned resistance smuggler. Cooper doesn't get an answer for who Luther's favorite smuggler happens to be. Then again, he's never answered that question with anything more than a blank, furrow browed stare. It's hard to ignore the hazel puppy-dog eyes, but he does so by focusing on the various supplies Cooper's brought. The flourish of presentation of whiskey is lost on Luther who looks, at least outwardly, unimpressed by the find.
Or perhaps it should be said his expression looks expectant, because from Luther's angle he sees Lynette's approach and subsequent first crack (ha) at the bottle. The man waits his turn - ladies first, as should be given the leadership of this group of resistance fighters - and reaches for the whiskey bottle after Lynette's poured her share. "Drinkable," confirms Luther, a sniff of the whiskey, a shrug, and a grunt later he reaches for a random tasting cup out of a nearby tray by the distillery to pour some of Cooper's whiskey into it. "But any more of this heat and it's going to be Nancy's in a few hours. If Cooper's got some potatoes in all of that sack, we'd be good for a new batch."
Speaking of food stuff. "D'you see all the mouths we gotta feed 'n' water now?" Luther turns to Cooper, brow lifting in askance of the man's opinion.
The bottles is snatched, though the smuggler knows, he still gives a show of being put out by
his booze being snapped up. . “Hey hey!” He makes a half-assed attempt to grab it. “Come on now. Dude… not cool. How am I ever gonna get him to admit that I’m cool, if you keep grabbin’ the goods.” Cooper wrinkles his nose, but snags a tin mug of his own.
“Ungrateful, the lot of ya,” Cooper offers in mock irritation, as he pours some for himself and drops down to sit at the table, muddy, dusty boots propped up on one of the chairs. “Know what I miss? Coffee. I wish it wasn’t so fucking expensive, even falling off the back of trucks.”
Lips press into a line at the mention of potatoes. “Look, I’m trying, but so far…” Cooper scratches at the stubble along his jaw. His more careful, act, falling away into something serious. “I think a lot of people are having that same idea.” He salutes Luther with his cup before taking a deep drink of it. Giving a cough against the taste, he continues gruffly, “Maybe you should actually go with me next time, Luther. You can growl and bear your teeth at them. Then perhaps they will actually bargain…” He picks up a can of corn and wiggles it. “Compared to these, the price is steep for actual vegetables.” There is a grimace at that admission. As least he can scavenge canned goods.
Then something that is said sinks in. “Wait what?” The mug clunks on the table top. “Your fucking kidding right? More?” Clearly, Thomas wasn’t given that memo. “It’s hard enough to get out as much as I do without being too suspicious.”
Cooper’s indignation is loud enough that he probably doesn’t hear Veronica’s approach, and suddenly the slim brunette is leaning against the sawhorse table to appraise the motley array of the smuggler’s finds. She reaches down to poke through a couple of items, before looking up, a flip of her dark hair over her shoulder as she looks up at her fellow LEO-turn-rebel.
“You find me any ammunition, HomeSec?” she asks, as terse and to the point as Sawyer ever is. She glances at Cooper and smirks, though, lifting one of the cans of corn, testing its heft. “If he complains more, you can throw it at him,” she says, under her breath, then louder, to Luther: “You can’t ask for potatoes for making hooch and then complain about having mouths to feed in the next breath, Bellamy.”
She’s practical, if not very sociable.
There’s a commotion atop of the roof of Nancy and a yelp before the pale face of Eve peers over the edge down at her friends and comrades blinking her doe brown eyes before squinting at, “DONUT!” The seer practically leaps off the top of the bus down to the others rushin forward dressed in.. a nightgown. The redhead goes in for what seems like a hug but soon turns out to be her patting him down on the sides. “You bring any sweet baby Mary Jane to lighten my life?” The oracle had need of different types of sedatives, sometimes the things she saw got to be too much.
Looking over to the others Eve grins slightly at her bearded friend, “Smile Hot Hands, smile.” Pulling her cheeks up to demonstrate for the man with the sunfire hands. The barefoot woman finds a patch of shade in Nancy and plops down in the dirt, watching the three closely.
"I'm saving you from yourself," Lynette says, to Cooper, "he can smell the desperation. It makes him hungry." There are rumors about Luther, Lynette is not above exploiting them to entertain herself. When their new arrivals come up, she frowns into her mug. And then drinks from it.
"Don't worry, we'll spread the burden out. More supply runs out here. Hopefully it won't change your load too much." She sighs and looks over at Veronica and Eve. "I'm not sure they'll last long anyway. Some of them are soft. Too soft." And this isn't a world for soft people. "They're weird," she adds, "just to look at."
For her more than others, maybe.
Upon the mention of going with Cooper to growl at suppliers, Luther casts a toothy smile back at the other man, an actual baring of his teeth in a humorless smirk. Like maybe he will go with, and do exactly that. He at least tosses the idea around mentally, but doesn't make any verbal agreement or promise to do as much. Largely because Veronica's chiding him for hypocrisy regarding hooch.
"It's not just for drinking," Luther counters with a jerk of his head to the metal drum at the tail end of the distillery. "Some of it goes to Nancy." Much of the time, a good portion of the alcohol goes towards fuel purposes. Or explosive cocktails. It's an experiment. And speaking of Nancy, he's glancing up and over as Eve awakens, the seer's voice commanding his attention by sheer volume. That, and she's jumping off bus tops in a nightgown and combat boots. Just the average day of the Resistance, right?
Hot Hands Bellamy is only tolerant of Eve speaking the title, but he's indulging of the gathered for the moment with a sip of poor man's whiskey from his metal cup. A twist of a smile comes, but only when Lynette marks him as hungry. Because he is. The man is always looking out for something edible. At times, even considering something that looks inedible. At the electrokinetic's remarks of the newest arrivals being soft, he grunts in agreement to the assessment. "Yeah," he notes, "who knew your hips would look so good after havin' kids with Ruiz?" What was that, Eve said? Oh right. Smile. And he does.
Vee gets a grimace when she asks about the ammo. “Sorry,” he half murmurs into the tin mug perched between his hands. His tone seems a bit more serious, “Food seems to be easier to scrounge outside the wall. You low, Sawyer? Might have some in that left side compartment in the van you can have. Just leave me a box?” Her asks of her. Cooper wasn’t one to hoard things, they were a team after all. Only as strong as their weakest link. Sitting among them all, he always felt that was his role, admittedly.
But then there is Eve screaming at Cooper, patting him down for the goods. He can’t help be give her a wide smile, while holding his arms out. “Hey now… you want to Eli to kill me?” Same tease different day.”Cause pretty sure he sees us like this… I’ll be holier than the pastor.” He makes a show of opening his jacket and digs out a bag of the very stuff she was looking for. He holds it up and gives it a little shake. It still felt odd that being a former enforcer of the law, he was now a supplier for his esteemed leader in the resistance.
“As promised, boss.” Thomas tosses it into her lap. “I also promise to find more, the Magic Mobile is better than ev—.” Cooper goes quiet and turns to look between Luther and Lynette. “Lynette with Kids?” Brows lift high on his head, touching the line of his beanie. Clearly, for him this seems like a foreign concept…. not to mention he was pretty sure he didn't see her pregnant. There might be a glance down to her hips… habit… “What are you all talking about?” Cause he is looking rather confused. Still more memos he missed it seems.
“Always low. Too many targets, not enough bullets,” Veronica says with a small smirk in Cooper’s direction. “I’m all right for now, but I’ll know where to find you when I need to.”
Like Cooper, she hasn’t seen the ‘new people.’ She lifts a brow at Lynette’s comment about them being ‘weird to look at.’ “ I didn’t think we were quite apocalypse now enough yet for people to start looking any different from the rest of us,” she says with a shrug, but then Luther is waxing poetic (or something) about child-bearing Lynette hips,
Her dark eyes dart from the big man to Cooper and back to Lynette. “Who what now?” There’s amusement under the confusion, if a rare showing.
“Oh Eli is fine! He hasn't shot anyone for touching me in weeks!” Or was it days? Eve really couldn't remember.
“Blessed be! Bless you Donut the mightiest of us all— Ooo,” Eve takes a deep whiff of the ganja inside, “This smells like some good shit. I must test.” If the leader of the group had her pair of SPECS she’d put them on but nevertheless, Eve sinks down to the ground and pulls out papers and a lighter with a pack of tobacco and thus begins rolling, her eyes flicking to and fro as her friends speak.
“Welll Vee.. these people are from another river. Jumped through a Ruiz hole and now look what they’ve done.” Tone soft and distracted as she squints rolling the paper into the crutch, “Found themselves in hell. Poor bastards.” Licking the side of the now cone of a joint, Eve’s brown eyes grow wide, “They know me. Another me,” shaking her head as she lights her medicine and takes a deep pull before slowly blowing the smoke out, it clings to her fingers before slowly wafting up towards the sky.
“Trippy.”
The mention of Ruiz and kids and herself, Lynette cuts a glare toward Luther. For a moment, it seems like that might be the end of it. But then he smiles. And she turns to backhand him across the face.
"Don't." is the only word she has for him. She turns toward Cooper next, but he only gets the look. "And you keep your eyes off." Her hips are very slender, thank you very much. Not like that other Lynette.
When Eve tries to explain, she shakes her head a little, because she still can't quite believe it, even though she saw them arrive. "Turns out there's more than one timeline. They came from another one. Just think of them as doubles that really shouldn't be here." Because that's what they are.
The sound of Lynette’s hand meeting Luther’s cheek rings out loud and clear with the force of it. No doubt, that was a maliciously meant strike. And he’s forced to twist his face with the blow, a grunt involuntarily escaping. A redness springs to color his cheek. The eye on that side narrows testily, and he for a flash of a moment looks like he may retaliate, posture shifting into almost a hunch, readying to spring at the woman.
But he doesn’t pounce. His jaw works, posture straightens, and Luther eases back to a relaxed stance. He flexes a hand, then reaches for the metal mug he’d been drinking from to take a rough swig of whiskey. “The other one of her,” he remarks with a quick huff of liquor scented breath, “is in it with another double of Ruiz. It’s a trip alright.” Head tilting at Lynette for the electrokinetic’s note, he can’t help but concur. “They shouldn’t be here. Puttin’ the camp at risk, for one. Though looks like a few of them are pretty familiar with what they can do.” He’d seen the battle with the robots, so that group at least has some fighting chops.
Still… “It’s whatever Eve’s got in mind for ‘em what matters though, right?” At least with Luther, he’s willing to put all that timeline and doubles nonsense aside to count them as extra bodies to their cause.
The slap gets a sympathetic cringe from Cooper, he’s been on the end of plenty of those, not just from Lynette. Then it’s his turn…. He gets lucky with the look.
Cooper’s head snaps upward and eyes roll upward. Nope, he wasn’t looking. “God, you are no fun, Nette. ” He gives Vee a wink from the angle he’s at and a bit of a smirk before his head drops back down again and he is reaching for the bottle in one movement. “Luther started it.” He gripes rather childlike under his breath, nose scrunching up briefly. The tin mug is refilled and offered to Vee, with a questioning uptick of his brow.
The mentions of other worlds pulls his attention from the pretty former Company agent. “Other— What did we do? Enter the Twilight Zone when I was gone?” A look over to Eve with a curious blink. “Another you? Jumping Rivers… Ruiz hole?” He squints and opens his mouth like he might comment on that, but after the hit Luther took, the smuggler decides not to pursue it. “Other timelines.” It is a lot to wrap one’s mind around.
“TIme travel isn’t enough, we have to be in an episode of Slider’s, too?” Cooper doesn’t think he is drunk enough for this discussion. He looks back over to Luther, offers the man a refill. Cause he clearly needs it more than the rest. Dull the pain.
Luther’s comment gets a furrow of Cooper’s brows, the man turning all the serious. Even if he’s been brought down so low, that need to protect and serve is still burned into his very core. No matter what, they needed help… not that he’d say that outloud. Instead, turns his attention to the bottle in his hand. “And that’s what is important. What she sees,” he agrees giving the seer a subdued smile. How many of them were sitting there cause of her?
Veronica’s brows knit when Lynette slaps Luther, but she’ll let the woman and the man fight their own battles, coming to neither one’s aid. Cooper’s blaming of the other man just earns him a look, but she accepts the mug, taking a sip.
She looks less surprised than Cooper does once the explanation comes through — while she never met anyone from another timeline, she’s worked with temporal manipulators and teleporters and other rarer evolved abilities. “I know some people who theorized it could happen — I mean other than on sci fi shows,” she says, glancing at Lynette with some sympathy, then over to Eve.
“Two Eves would be way more than any dimension should have to handle, so maybe we’re lucky it’s Lynette instead,” Vee says, leaning against the van before taking a sip from the tin. “Two Coopers… God, can you imagine?” There’s another of those rare smiles, one that pulls her dimples into view. “So is there a way for them to get back or are they stuck in this hellhole of a world with the rest of us?”
The pale precognitive puffs quietly on her joint before tossing another freshly rolled one to Luther while eyeing Lynette, “You both need it.” A twinkle in her eyes, it isn't like she enjoys seeing the physical action amongst One Tribe but she wanted, no needed them brutal. Even to each other if need be. They were all in all sharp in Eve’s mind and she wouldn't have it any other way. Her dysfunctional ass family. “Hot Hands, Donut thank you for trusting me.” Eve snorts as the tendrils of smoke twists around her hands and waft eventually to the open air around them. It's still a strange thing having anyone really have that much faith in her.
“This is an impossible circumstance that we all have found ourselves in. We will see them through the next river and they will in turn help us. It's how it works,” taking a moment to take a deep pull and coughing a bit from holding it too long, “In any world.” She chokes out and claps her hands on her chest before looking towards Vee with slightly reddened eyes, “Two of me, how delightful. We could do all the same moves in sync.”
Eve might be running choreography in her head. Snapping herself out of it mentally she drags a hand through her tousled red hair pondering how the Travelers will get home. “I'm going Deep.” Everyone in this camp knows what that means, Eve is going to go searching through the other place that leads to windows or glimpses to other futures, other possible outcomes. That time meant that Eve would look like shit and be weak. It's always worth it though, Eve always makes sure inducing and chasing visions was worth it. For the betterment of her friends, her people.
“If we had two Luthie’s I still put my money on all Lynette’s kicking his ass.” A teasing wink for her bearded friend.
Obviously, this whole situation is not a fun one for Lynette, and she finds herself a spot on a table and sits there to drink. Possibly to drink until these travelers are gone again.
"Ruiz makes these holes in space. Whatever gets sucked up in there is gone forever and dead in the worst way. But apparently these Ruizes," she says, although with obvious distaste, "have found a way to make that hole lead somewhere." There's a glance over at Eve at the notion of two of her, specifically two of her doing a dance routine.
Things could maybe be worse, she might have to admit.
"I guess if we have to have two of someone, it might as well be me. Even if this one just proves that no Lynette knows how to make good life choices." The last bit is muttered into her cup, because she's drinking again.
Luther rubs a hand on his face. It looks like he's still rubbing at where Lynette backhanded him, but also doing so from sheer exasperation at the whole situation, and at Eve's betting against him. Hm. Veronica's positing Two Coopers? Two Eves? … What if there's two of him? Luther's brow furrows, the man's expression disturbed. Hmph.
Luckily there's plenty else to be distracted about. "You think they'll still be willing to help after a few weeks in this shithole?" He sounds doubtful of the travelers' willingness, though thoughtful as Lynette grumbles about her alter ego. This time, he manages to keep his amusement down and the teasing silenced.
"Well, if nothin' else, we got some more hands, eyes, ears," Luther muses aloud. "The problem being it's going to strain the rations, this many new people." At least he's calling them by the whole body instead of just parts at the end of it. Looking back over at Eve at their leader makes her announcement to go Deep, he frowns again, having never liked the physical strain and toll it takes on the woman. Eyes turning to the others, he then nods to them and straightens. "Gonna go prep the watch, then. We got a bigger area to cover." And so is the implied invitation for any volunteers in joining him. Drunk or not.
“Two of me? Ha!” The idea clearly amusing the former agent. Though Cooper does give Veronica a goofy grin and props his chin on the palm of his hand. “I could think of a lot of things to do with two of you though.” He gives a quick wag of his brows. Not that he could handle two of her… but… he’ll happily imagine the possibilities.
“And Eve-baby…” He leans to where he can see the seer again, “I don’t think anyone would take you up on that bet.” Lynette was scary af… Speaking of… he turns back to the scary one, expression sobering some. “If you think on it… I don’t think anyone can say they made good life choices, especially here. So at least your in good company.” Thomas can’t help but put a positive spin on the end of that.
Their little group of friends were just as messed up as she is.
Cooper hops up then and there with a declaration of: “I’mma going to go with Bellamy. See how I can help while I’m here.” He brings a lot of food and other supplies for the resistance. He makes quick work of emptying his bag of what he brought this round. Though he picks up two cans, the chocolate pudding.
One Thomas sets gingerly in front of Lynette, with a quiet, “I think you need this more than anyone right now.” No joking, no funny business. Just a friend, offering another friend a gift. The other, gets tossed to Eve. “Tribute, my liege!” He states loudly in a rather bad english accent. “Don’t let Eli get this one, though.” He gives her a knowing look. “Don’t make me fight your man for the honor of your pudding.” He wouldn’t really. It’s all fun and games until an Eli pokes you in the eye.
“Come on, man.. You can tell me about these new people.” He doesn’t take the whiskey, leaving it for the girls to finish off if they want, but he does take his bag. While hitching it on his shoulder, Thomas gives Vee a kiss on the cheek and another wag of his brows. “Maybe I’ll get to see you later, hmm?”
Cooper’s brow wagging and implications about double Veronicas earns him a roll of her eyes, and she doesn’t respond to the innuendo, though there’s the tiniest hint of a dimple showing on the side of her mouth losing the battle to keep from smiling. The battle’s lost, though, as Eve considers dual choreography with her imaginary doppelganger, and Veronica huffs out a short laugh. “God save us all,” she mutters.
Her more serious look goes to Lynette, and she shakes her head. “Crazy. I mean, no more crazy I guess than throwing lightning bolts or seeing the future, but still crazy.” She moves to sit near the other woman, picking up the bottle of whiskey and taking a swig. No need for Lynette to drink alone.
“Later,” is a noncommittal answer to the second of Cooper’s eyebrow wags; it’s about as much of a promise he’ll get.