Skint

Participants:

eileen_icon.gif hugh_icon.gif

Scene Title Skint
Synopsis Someone finally comes looking for Drake Leeds.
Date March 5, 2009

Fresh Kills Harbor


Yes, it's late at night. But business never ceases here. And without the mechanized unloading equipment of actual legitimate ports, there's always a need for human labor. Hugh AKA Drake the Undead is busily schlepping boxes of something indeterminate but no doubt hugely illegal from a little tramp freighter. He's flushed despite the chill in the air, but seems relatively unwearied, lost in his own thoughts.

One of the many inherent dangers when it comes to pretending to be someone you're not is the risk of being discovered for who you truly are, but tonight this isn't the hazard Hugh needs to be worried about. In life, Drake Leeds had many friends, but he also had many enemies as well — when Eileen Ruskin heard rumours of a man working at the harbor who matched the description of one of Kazimir's most loyal soldiers, she decided to chance a closer look.

Dressed in a long winter coat, leather gloves and a pair of matching boots, she's been watching Hugh for the past half hour from under the cover of darkness but now, as she steps out into view, the outline of her trim figure is illuminated by the artificial light under which the dockyard operates after sunset. More impressive, it glints off the barrel of the pistol she has leveled with the man's chest. "Leeds."

There's….no recognition in the faded blue eyes, as he regards Eileen mildly. "Don't tell me I owe you money, too?" he says, tentatively, having dropped the box on the stack with the others. "Because you'll have to get inna queue, love. I'm skint," He doesn't seem to be armed. Not in any way that'd go up against a gun.

It isn't the answer Eileen was expecting, and for a moment she feels panic swell in her breast. Did she just point a gun at the wrong man? Her eyes search Hugh's face as she moves closer, and the apprehensive expression she wears tightens into one more resolute. While it's been a long time since she saw Drake, she's confident that she'd recognize him anywhere. "You're a rat is what. Where's Velasquez?"

He straightens fully, but slowly, and spreads his hands in that gesture of peaceable intent. "Darlin', I don't know who you are, and I don't know who that is. I take it you know me. What is it you think I've done to you?" No indication of that previously tremendous capacity for violence.

"Velasquez," Eileen reiterates. "Don't bother trying to hide him. We already know that he's here." Hugh's earnest response gives her pause, however, and she narrows her eyes as if this might lend her insight into why the man she believes to be Drake is acting so strangely. Seeing nothing that might indicate he's telling the truth anymore than his quiet insistence, she pulls the hammer back with an audible click. "What's your name?"

"Drake Leeds, but that's about all I remember. Last I knew it was 2003 and I was in Afghanistan. I….wake up in the water on the beach on this fucking hole, and they tell me it's six years later, someone nuked New York, and the world is full of comic book superheroes," Drake says, tone still ingenuous. "I may have known this bloke before, but I don't know I know him now. What's your name, girl?" He's apparently quite serious - his gaze is level and clear, as it meets hers. He looks down to the gun. "Now, I know I've done some very wicked things, but mostly in the service of Her Majesty. Last I recall, it didn't involve skinny little girls. What'd I do, shoot your puppy?"

"Amnesia. That's convenient." But not, fortunately for Hugh, unheard of. There seems to be a serious case of it going around Staten Island — first Sylar, now Drake. Eileen doesn't lower her pistol, but she doesn't pull the trigger yet either. "Kazimir Volken? Ethan Holden? Vanguard? Nothing ringing a bell?"

His blue gaze is utterly guileless. "Not the merest of chimes, my vicious dumpling." He lifts a hand, in order to try and very gently put the mouth of that gun off to one side. "Who're these worthies I'm supposed to know?"

The moment Hugh's hand starts to move, Eileen reels backwards and squeezes off a warning shot that ricochets off a nearby storage container, whizzing off into the shadows. With the crack of the weapon still ringing in her ears, she's deaf to the sound of her own voice when she says, very lowly but very clearly, "Don't—"

Hugh lifts his hands, obediently. "Alright, then," he says, still easily, though he's poised to move. "Listen, if you're not gonna take whatever it is out of my hide right now, then can we go somewhere and talk about it?"

"So you can finish the job Kazimir sent your friend to do?" Eileen asks in a leer. "I'm not going anywhere with you, whether you remember the last six years or not. If you're telling the truth, do yourself a favour and get on the first boat back to England. If you're aren't, then you know there are more dangerous people out there than me who're gunning for you."

"I don't 'ave the money, love," Hugh says, quietly. "And well, that's a risk I'll 'ave to take. Who's this Kazimir?"

"Irrelevant," is Eileen's pointed response, then just in case he does remember— "Dead." She begins to back up, stepping over a length of rope she might have tripped over if she hadn't noted it when she first approached, and lowers her pistol as soon as she feels there's a safe amount of distance between them… even if no amount of distance is safe around the real Drake Leeds. "I'll be keeping my eye on you. Velasquez too."

"As you like," Hugh says, with a single-shouldered shrug. "Call me if you ever want to chat up about old times." And then he simply turns his back on her, as if the conversation were necessarily over.

It is for now. Eileen moves off the way she came, the sound of her footsteps causing the wooden planks to creak and groan in gentle protest under the weight of her departure.


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March 5th: Lying by Omission
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March 6th: The Right To Remain Silent
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