text, @TARANTO, day after the saloon fire

[heavyhitter]

hey guys guess what: blankets!!! me and TF to the fucking rescue, we rustled up like 40 of these bad boys
super cozy, some nice patterns. one of them has a robot wolf on it
it was also all entirely legal

they're ALMOST free, all you gotta do is tell me a story then come get one (i'm by those spiky ass fat plants that bleed if you knock them over)

also since i have 40 and there's more than 40 of us, i guess also pick someone to get cozy with

Comments

[12inches]

[ What can I say, Jason does stubble well, that's what meta is for. And excuse him, he's had his own problems to mope out, thank you very much. Tentwarming is important and cathartic. The least you could do is get him back up to speed. ]

Yeah, what's up, Sherlock?

[ Once Pepper gets the hint that the gloves aren't the best point of interest, she sets about poking around Jason's duffle bag instead. Discovering it closed, she resigns herself to settling up next to his leg. Even gunpowdery strangers are better than trying to wedge between Ramir and dad. ]

I've lost track of what becomes ic info when, I give up

[gutpunching]

[He is what he is, Ramir, some things u just gotta accept. If nothing else, she's not wrong about what he's been spending his time looking into since the fire. Luckily, even if he's not really the type to run right to the sheriff with his findings—or even involve the crew at large—none of it is anything he has reason to be mum about.

Unfortunately, there's not a lot more to tell. Only mostly to be difficult—]

Too mysterious and vague to go pointing fingers.

[He could bore them with the details, but the bottom line is no real identifying info, if plenty of coincidental suspicions. That said, in the long run it might not be their biggest problem.]

Good money's that the locals won't need much more reason to break out the torches and pitchforks no matter who did the torching.

[Anti-Deemer nervousness is at all all time high. Could be that was the intended result. Could be the arsonist was trying to smoke out the proprietor, or the Crew, or destroy some kind of evidence hidden in the barracks. Either way, what it's done is stir the locals into a fearful and reactionary buzz—and half the crew into an uproar.]

oh god like i know any better

[heavyhitter]

[ God, she almost regrets asking. The whole mystery of it is frustrating, and she's already tired of hearing locals speculate, after just a day. Puzzle solving is so not her style. ]

Great, maybe we can pick someone and get it over with, then.

[ Okay, so she's not totally in favor of stringing up some innocent guy for it... but she'd really appreciate if the rest of the team got on with figuring out this mission so she could enjoy herself in the background.

In the interest of something better to talk about, and with a return of her had-a-bright-idea smile: ] Hey, what's it gonna take to get a story out of you guys? The blanket bribe doesn't work unless you want two, so what else can I offer up?

shrug emoji

[12inches]

[ Go figure. But if there's one thing worse than holding back on details, it's throwing around near-baseless accusations willy nilly at innocent people. Frustrating as it is, at least Jason knows when to fold. ]

[ Ramir on the other hand, probably doesn't know folding is a legitimate strategy. Her suggestion gets a groan out of him. ]

You're gonna wring me story-dry, you know that? I think I've exhausted all my good ones...

[ All his good personal ones, anyway. At this rate he's going to have to resort to creepypasta. ]

Jason's probably got loads, though.

just gestures vaguely at the plot

[gutpunching]

[Yeah, somehow picking a scapegoat doesn't seem like the best way to solve their problems, bud. But sometimes you just need to play a longer game. There's nothing to be gained in chasing their tails, either.

Speaking of. He leans back and Pepper resettles herself at his knee, tail flicking.]

I'm a pretty boring guy.

[This is so facetious it hurts. (Ramir knows about his sordid superhero past, and Sigma seemed to at least suspect something of the sort given the gritty comic book reboot jabs. That doesn't mean he has to make it easy.) He's already proven to be real shitty at sharing 99% of the time, she must have seen this coming.]

Haven't you gotten your fill of Days of our Lives already?

[As for her question—give it a minute.]

[heavyhitter]

[ That's probably fair, she has made a lot of storytelling demands of Sigma already. She probably has to give him some time to live through a few more stories first. ]

Alright, fine, Sigma's off the hook. [ That comes with a squeeze around his waist under the blanket; is that a friendly squeeze, or a this time squeeze? Who can ever really be sure? Back to Jason. ]

But you're not. I'm pretty fucking sure I wouldn't be offering up a blank check trade here if I was tired of hearing this shit. What've you got?

[gutpunching]

[Wow, really milking the boyfriend for all he's worth, huh. Someone works fast. But turnabout is fair play.]

Ladies first.

[There's his terms. You did say blank check. And maybe he's feeling nosy.]

I'll take my turn after you take yours.

[After all that listening she did, surely she's got some talking in her.]

[heavyhitter]

[ Whoa, look at that, Jason actually asking after something. That's too rare to possibly pass up. ]

Yeah, alright.

[ She settles back again as she considers it, mentally pawing through a few options. It's got to be both something good, and something Sigma hasn't heard already. That second part could be tricky. ]

Uh, lessee... [ oh, shit, she's got it. With a bright-idea smile: ] Sigma, I didn't tell you the one where I almost got kidnapped and murdered, right? In France?

[12inches]

[ Being an eccentric but largely benign and average college student save for the one inexplicably wild roller coaster of a day that takes a good couple hours of backstory to get any good tale-telling out of it, Sigma's more than content to let the renegades beg back and forth for the other's expositions. He's not gonna get in the way of Jason spilling more of his mysterious ways, that's for sure. ]

[ When she asks, his brow furrows briefly, flipping back through all the exploits he's had shared with him. ]

No you— [ Wait. Kidnapped and murdered?? It's like they were made for each other. (Except that's very much not a good thing, and it shows on his face and in the way he straightens up a little beside her.) ] Back up. You have Space-France too?

[ Priorities. ]

And you what—?

[heavyhitter]

No, no, this was France-France, not too far outside Toulouse.

[ But this means she hasn't told the story, right? Right. She looks a little delighted about that, always pleased with a fresh audience. She settles back into her storytelling mode, complete with full gesticulations and an even more dramatically expressive tone than usual. ]

Okay, so I'm with this guy I picked up somewhere in Monaco, Vinh Du. Friendly but kinda dumb, big enough to keep anyone from wanting to mess with him-slash-us. We're headed into town on foot, and this van full of super friendly guys pulls over to let us in. They're all hyped for the company, say they're headed home from a trip out of town and they've been driving forever. I figured they were alright.

So when we said we weren't really going anywhere in particular, just into town to find a place to stay for the night, they got all excited and said we should come back with them, grandma would love to meet us. And who the fuck am I to turn down some French grandma, right? So I say sure, bring us along, and they take us to this kinda rundown place at the edge of town. There's definitely no grandma, but there is some pretty good food and drink, so we go along with it. It's a pretty good fucking party, we both get drunk. Then they start saying that now we should go to grandma's place, it's at the center of town and she'll feed us more, it'll be great. I wasn't sure why we didn't go straight there, but I was too drunk to be too worried about it. No, I didn't start getting a little worried until we piled back into the van and I realized this was definitely not the way into town, we were going further out. And, you know, this was before I was strong, so I had to be careful about shit like a van full of guys taking me somewhere other than where they promised.

Anyway, Vihn Du's fucking smashed at this point, and they keep offering us more as we're driving. I make him stop drinking, for whatever that's worth. We're in this wooded area at this point, and I'm like, yeah, this is where we get gutted. So I start talking about having to pee, play it up real hard, start threatening to pee on their upholstery if they don't pull over. They do, and the fucking second the door opens, I grab Vihn Du and fucking book it. It's pitch black by then, so I get off the road with him, and the next thing I know we're falling into this ravine just off the edge of the road. I pull Vihn Du down and make him shut up, wiggle us down under the fallen leaves, and the guys are pissed. But they can't find us. First they try to play it off like a joke, try and get us to pop out and get back in the van, then they start threatening. Say they know we're still here, and if we wanna make this easy on ourselves we gotta just get back in. We don't fucking move, and eventually it sounds like they're giving up. There's some muttering, some slamming car doors, the van drives off. Vihn Du starts to crawl back up again, but I stop him. You know why? [ Here's a pause for dramatic effect, and for her to look pleased with herself. ] Three car doors slam, but there were four guys. We wait it out. And not five minutes later the fucking van pulls up again. One more car door closes, and then they're gone.

[ Not the closest of calls, but probably the only time she's saved her own life by threatening to pee. She still looks pretty pleased with herself, and tacks on as an afterthought: ] Oh, yeah, and the next day we headed into town. The house was empty, but I found the van and trashed it. Just fucking blew it up. I wanted to find it with at least one of them in it, but I guess you can't get everything you want.

[gutpunching]

[Wow. Well, if nothing else, she knows how to pony up. It's a little rambling, but he did ask for it. And the relative warm of the tent isn't a bad place to kick back and listen. The more rambling and ridiculous it gets, the less he manages to be surprised by it.]

That's too bad. Sounds like they could have used a more memorable sendoff. [Y'know, because not having a van to do it in only stops dirtbags from abducting dumbasses off the road for so long. Only mostly facetiously—]

Didn't your mother ever tell you not to take candy from strangers?