Participants:
| Scene Title | Rolodex |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Colette makes an unlikely informant when Logan needs a little help with hiding. |
| Date | August 17, 2010 |
It's not a sunny day, but it's a dry one, humid as New York summers seem to be, and this patch of Central Park is sparsely populated. By the angel fountain, a crime scene took place, recently reopened to the public and Logan is oblivious to this history, simply sitting under the shadow of the mounted granite angel with his back to it as if he never did watch Doctor Who. His long legs are crossed as he waits, his slacks and waistcoat a matching pinstripe, his shirt a vague lavender, the collar open in response to the warmth weather, the sleeves rolled back up to his elbows.
He has a book in his hands, of all things. Understanding the Brain and Its Development: A Chemical Approach, gripping its customised leather cover with thumbs pinning down the pages, with a slight squint to his reading as if maybe he could use reading glasses for the fine print, the long words and technical jargon. One elbow is slung against the back of the bench, and a foot waves on the end of his ankle restlessly.
There is also a dog leash, coiled up like a snake on the bench beside him. Within the immediate vicinity, there is no dog to be seen.
Then hands cover John Logan's eyes; small, soft and warm. "Guess who," is in a familiar enough sing-song voice followed by a bubbled giggle and the slip of bare arms around Logan's shoulders in a way that implies more familiarity than most people might willingly ascribe to the Brit. Leaning over Logan's shoulders, her hands laced together below his throat, Colette Nichols leans in and offers a quirk of one brow up into the air and a smile spread across her lips.
"Heya John," the teen offers with a wry smile, in no immediate need to untangle herself from the lanky man perched on the seat. Of course, Colette isn't the only one coming to say hello. Within just a few moments there's a gray-furred snout at his knee, big brown eyes staring up at him from an old and tired looking dog that offers a tentative lick to the knee of Logan's pants, then sits down and perks his ears forward at the side of the bench.
"Jupiter likes you," Colette says cheerily, "guess that means you're a dog person, huh?"
Only lately.
The tiny print describing a chapter entitled Malnutrition, Environment and Brain Function swims a little as Logan's eyes unfocus in surprise when skinny teenage arms are wrapping around him from behind, evoking a twitched startle that dies as soon as it began. His knee veers away from curious dog nose with a flare of steely intolerance in the pull of his mouth. "No," he clarifies, despite the fact that he recently smells a little like dog hair, that a few grey strands of it are caught on his waistcoat, that there is a dog leash right next to him.
Circumstantial. The only slightly aged book is fwapped closed, Logan angling a glance back enough for one pale eye to catch a glimpse of one of more emerald quality. "Is Jupiter the one that's not a planet anymore?" he queries, with a sharp shrug of sharp shoulders. Get off.
Fingertips reach up to threaten a pinch at each of Logan's cheeks but never quite pull through, and Colette leans away and unwinds her arms from Logan as she walks around the bench. Carnation red stands out in the faded fabric of a very old t-shirt that's seen quite a lot of wear. The faded silk-screen printing of Che Guevara's face on the front is barely visible now and the stenciled words Never Too Late can hardly be seen. The seams at the t-shirt's shoulder have split, showing a faint sliver of lightly tanned skin, loose red threads freyed there.
"I wasn't expectin' t'hear from you, I mean— not in a bad way or nothin', just that aside from one favor we didn't have much in common." Picking up the leash coiled by Logan's side, Colette moves to sit down in its space, stuffing the leash between her and Logan. The teen draws one leg up beneath herself, sitting on the heel of a scuffed, black boot, patched fabric of her jeans seeming to intentionally match the battered old shirt she's wearing, right down to the car seatbelt she's using as a belt, complete with buckle in the front. Some sort of salvager chic or something.
"You got a pooch out here?" Colette asks innocently enough, turning mismatched eyes that he could've sworn she had both of the last time he saw her out into the park's grounds with the looming, stone angel of the Bethesda fountain at their backs.
Maybe eyes heal slowly and in pieces, like dislocated backs, snapped legs. There is an amount of wandering of his gaze, from milky eye to verdant green, Logan tucking his book beneath a thigh, and hooking his hands together with that one elbow remaining hooked over the back of the bench. A repeat of a simple answer, "No," except there's a slightly searching glance about the park for that pooch he does not have out here, before his gaze fixes on the one eye that seems like it can see him, jagged hairline and icy eyes, a silver ring glimmering from low on this thumb.
"You talked about the people that hide people when they've got something to hide," he says, his voice wrapped around the words like an artfully delivered riddle. "Which is why you came to us in the first place. You didn't want the cops all in it, going so far as to keeping your dad in the dark."
He was lying. About not having a dog out here. Just past his shoulder, Colette may catch a glimpse of a loping canine timidly trotting for the bench, maw shut and eyes wide, as if worried it had gotten in trouble for wandering so far. Large enough and wolf enough for some people on the same pathway to step aside for her, Cheza's tail hangs low as she approaches.
Jupiter's reaction to the arriving wolf-hound is much in the same manner of Colette's reaction to what Logan explains. Wide-eyed and surprised. Immediately getting up onto his feet Jupiter for the barest of moments bristles with unwelcome reaction until Jupiter notices something important about the stranger.
~It's a lady~
Suddenly the old police dog's ears perk up and mouth opens, tongue lolls out and a seeming smile creeps up his mouth as he takes hesitating padding steps towards the silver — and bigger — dog approaching. Colette's expression softens when she sees the exotic green eyes of Logan's dog, then looks up to him with a crooked smile. "Yeah uh, they… it's complicated? If you wanna' give me a lecture about doin' stuff that's illegal Nicole already grilled me about it a whole bunch."
Though Colette's brows do furrow as she considers something Nicole said, and there's honest words to come, not even really tactfully so. "Sis said you're not really one've the good guys. That— you're in everything for yourself, an' that you'd just as soon hurt someone like me than help." It doesn't sound like Colette wants to believe that, and she isn't explaining any further.
Coming to stop about ten feet from the bench, Cheza is lowering her back end into a tense sit, her previously flattened ears forward and eyes avid at the male dog's approach. She gets a glance, now, from her master-through-bureaucracy, Logan's long nose wrinkling a little, an uncomfortable shift in his seat before his draws his attention back to the conversation, a glance down at his nails.
"Sis said that," he notes, with half a smile. "Sis just wants me to herself. This conversation, however, is not about me, or even about you, particularly. What I would like is a favour returned. I want an introduction to the people who hide people, because I've got one. The sister of an Evolved man under my employ, whom the government is using to try and flush him out."
It's a bit of a spun lie, weaved before her eyes rather than practiced — he's always been better at improv, anyway. He ignores the peripheral shape of ~his~ dog now tentatively approaching the other, a disarming amount of shyness in her imposing frame. "I don't want to leave my marks in hiding her out of sight, but then I looked at my Rolodex.
"Guess who sprung to mind."
He's hitting all the right notes, Logan is. Colette offers a mildly bashful smile when he mentions that he thought of her specifically in ways that would be helpful. Business, though, is certainly business. Bringing her other foot up to fold beneath herself, Colette's boot clunks against the wood of the bench. She looks out, around the park, at the people jogging, walking their pets, letting their kids play on the red brick plaza.
Turning to look back to Logan, there's less goofy teenager in Colette's expression and something more along the lines of her sister's practiced demeanor. They look more related when they're both being serious. "I can introduce you to somebody, m'not sure who, but it ain't my decision t'make, so— " Colette's brows pinch together, awkwardly halting when she's not sure where to take that sentence. Instead, she opts to start a whole new one. "It um, it's pretty simple really. I'll get in touch with somebody who'll meet with you an' find out more about the person you wanna hide. We'll see how it goes, then— you know— if it all works out details get arranged. There's not like a fee or nothin'."
It's kind've like a charity, with guns.
"But I'll only do it for you if you do me a favor," and now Colette completely sounds like her sister, always wanting something in return. "Deal?"
One difference would be Nicole's doubtful eye at Logan's almost saccharine attention, the patience of his stare and the edge of a smile at his mouth — she'd call bullshit, more than likely, but Colette doesn't know him very well. Colette hugged him in greeting and tagged him a dog person. The way one eyebrow raises at this last part does hark back to some of his severity, but it's corrected with a twist of a deeper smile, chin twitching up a little.
"I never go anywhere not prepared to bargain," Logan says, and his eyes are a little green in the light — less her deep, heart-of-emerald green, more the tone of cheap jade. "But I concede only if you're capable of moving swiftly. I aim to have her somewhere safe by the time the weekend's done, and I can put her up for a while, but not long — or I'd rather not have to."
A hand drifts up, rubbing the backs of long fingers beneath his angular jaw at a patch where he didn't angle razor blade correctly this morning, and with a little more reserve, asks, "What sort of favour are you imagining?"
"Honesty," is Colette's answer, and by and large the hardest thing for Logan to offer as any kind of payment. "I wanna know if you saw something in the Flash, and if you did what it was." There's a slow creep of one of Colette's brows up in the air as she folds her hands into her lap. "Write it down, let me video tape you, your choice." There's a wrinkle of Colette's nose at that, then a fond smile and a slow close of her eyes. "You agree to do that, I'll agree to talk to someone pronto for ya."
Tilting her head to the side, Colette's bangs sweep down over her blind eye, and the teen presses her tongue to the inside of her cheek thoughtfully, then exhales a breathy sigh. "I promise, too, so you know it's good 'cause I'm all about my word'n stuff. Just— if you saw something? It's important, even if it doesn't seem like it t'you."
Ask the pinstripe-suit wearing mobster with golden highlights if he's going to give you honesty and he might just laugh. Logan doesn't, though his eyes do fade back to fishbelly-pale — not visible, seeing as he turns his head from her to consider the wider setting, finds himself watching the way Cheza is snapping playful at Jupiter's front paws, all lanky limbs and bright eyes like her owner. Trust him to get given an illegal dog. There's now a dimple of amusement writing in the corner of his mouth, thinking over her request.
"How old are you?" is an abrupt departure, impulsive.
"I have a can of mace," Colette notes, "and a laser," is also added. Though it all seems wry and teasing, as if Nicole may have ~warned~ Colette about the big, bad, green-eyed-monster in the Linderman Group. "I'm eighteen," she finally offers in a slightly quieter tone than her (mostly) joking commentary carried.
There's a narrowing of her eyes, like she's trying to understand Logan in some base way, but on failing to even scratch the surface her attention winds up on Cheza and Jupiter, watching the green-eyed wolfhound and the grizzled ex-police dog sniffing at each other's noses with a crooked smile on her face.
"You didn't answer my question," Colette finally reminds Logan in only a lightly chastising tone.
The answer of her age doesn't evoke a reaction in him that tells her much about why he asked, save for a thin smile of tolerance for her jesting, a rapid blink, and then back to dog watching, silly canine grins and massive ears all alert, the snake of the female's tail making muscled wags. "Deal," Logan says, by way of answer, but then holds up a hand, one finger pointed skywards. "But only if you catch my good side." That hand rests down on the knee that folds over the other, and more seriously, adds, "I'll think about the camera. Probably written. I've heard of YouTube, you know.
"But pronto, as you say."
"You'd be an instant sensation," Colette admits with a crooked smile, leaning forward as she unfolds her legs and sets her feet down on the brickwork, not quite standing up, but suggesting she's about to. "It's for a private project, m'trying t'put everything together like a big jigsaw puzzle, so nobody has t'get hurt, y'know?" One dark brow rises, and Colette finally pushes herself up to her feet, arms straight up over her head, back crooked in an arch as she rises up onto her toes.
Done with the stretch, Colette's arms sweep down to her sides in a soft slap against the denim, one brow lower than the other over her blind eye as she considers Logan in silence for a moment. "The girl, the one you want to bring over. Do you know if she's…" it's a hard question to ask, "she got a— like— a power or anything? At least that you know about? 'Cause it'll be important for figuring out where she goes."
For a second, the answer seems easy, but Logan stops himself from the automatic no, then waves a hand vaguely. He picks up the leash, which gets Cheza's automatic attention, abandoning her playmate in response to the jingle of metal. She pushes a nose at his hands, and gets her large head shoved to the side for her troubles. "None that I know of, but I can see about testing her when she gets here," he says, imagining buying an Evo test. A bit like buying condoms. If you're easily embarrassed by that kind of thing, anyway.
Preoccupied for a second as Cheza impatiently hops up enough to place her paws square on the bench seat, making as if in attempt to get her back end up too and walk all over the Brit, for huuugs or asserting herself, but his automatic shove induces a growl instead of simple tolerance, this time. Which makes him startle and shrink back, hissing a curse, and getting to his feet. She makes a lazy snap at his hands when he goes to attach the leash, darting in to clip it swiftly as she simply lolls a tongue out the side of her mouth and peers up at Colette.
"But she's related to one," Logan says, a sharp comment down at Cheza as if in some disparaging snark about half-breeds, then back to Colette. "Unless this is an Evo-only arrangement you people have."
Wandering bootfalls bring Colette on a meandering path in front of the bench, arms still crossed and head dipped down, one side of her dark bangs covering the near side of her face like an inky curtain. Threading those dark locks behind one ear, Colette turns her head to regard Logan more fully, shaking her head in response to his question. "Nah, we help out anybody who needs it really." At least she's pretty sure about that, at any rate.
"Jupiter!" Colette calls cheerily, and both of the old police dog's black ears perk up as he extricates himself from Cheza's proximity, albeit a bit unwillingly. Paws click claws on brickwork as the loyal old hound pads his way over to Colette's side, no leash at all needed. Mis-matched eyes settle on Logan again, and the dark-haired teen crooks her lips into a smile.
"I'll make sure to get someone to take care of your friend, Mister Logan," and that title sounds so formal coming from her. "Just remember what you promised me, an' we'll be all good." Flicking an errant strand of black hair from over her eyebrow, Colette starts to tread backwards, one heel scuffing after the other, Jupiter following her reverse progress across the brickwork.
Winding the leash around one slim wrist, Logan collects up his book in other hand, following the progression of the teenager with his eyes. "Dare I forget," is meant to reassurance as she leaves, before his top lip curls enough to show teeth in some privately irritated gesture. But honesty isn't all that steep a price for the thing he's asking for, is it? Survivors cast adrift on rafts cut slivers of skin to bait fish for food. Who says Logan is exempt from slicing pieces off himself in payment?
She isn't, after all, asking for a pound of flesh.
Cheza, keen to explore, takes off at a wander to left, jolting the Brit to trail along after her, more concerned with what might happen if he attempts to steer her than he is about where she thinks she's going.