apocalypsehowcomm | [Log] Catch-All for February

Who: Winter and YOU
When: The month of February
Where: Locations in the prompts
Summary: Winter deals with the aftermath of his latest explore and the TDM prompts
Warnings: Various attempts at destruction, memory loss, mold

I. How Many Ways Can I Smash This - Outskirts of town, ADI headquarters

Two days after making a very satisfying crater out of a clearly Web-aligned artifact in Dogtown, Winter finds that same artifact in his pocket. A little silver triangle covered in etched cob-webs that fits easily in his palm.

Annoyed, he goes to the outskirts of the city-- not Dogtown side, the other side-- and hurls another grenade at it. It's back in his pocket the next morning.

He talks somebody into snitching him some highly corrosive acid from one of ADI's labs, and watching over him for safety purposes as he pours it all over the damn thing.

He has Steve smash it with Thor's hammer.

He finally returns from a meeting with ADI, disgruntled, and tells whoever's waiting for him outside, "They can't keep it, either. You're just supposed to watch me and make sure it doesn't make me do anything stupid." He sounds extremely displeased with this situation.

II. No More Dance Steps - Closed to CR, at a local swing club

Once a month, there's a swing dance club in the rec center in town. Winter always goes with whichever of his friends happen to be free that night (or more likely, those friends who make an effort to be free that night). Today is no exception.

Except today he's standing outside staring at the sign with a confused frown. "Why am I here?" he asks hesitantly. "I don't know how to dance."

III. One Fear - Around Glaucester and ADI

After that horrifying realization that he's truly forgotten something, Winter keeps stopping in the middle of whatever he's doing and pulling out small hand-sized journal from his pocket, flipping back through it to find something and double-check it, or hastily scribbling something new.

And he seems to have multiple journals in multiple pockets, when he's wearing his outdoor coat that has pockets big enough for them. "Wait," he says in the middle of a conversation, and fishes through pockets until he finds the right one and can double-check something.

IV. Safe Place Gone - outside the ADI apartments

One chilly morning, Winter is outside the ADI apartments, sitting on a bench in the snow, wearing his sole secondary pair of shoes, scrubbing vigorously at his combat boots and looking distressed.

There's a stack of other belongings on the bench beside him, blankets and clothes and a handful of books, all in various states of... grossness. Some of it is moldy. Some of it is damp. Some of it is crusted in something that looks like blood. Winter is trying to clean it off, to the best of his limited cleaning ability.

Come help him out? Or just be grossed out by what happened to his stuff.

V. Wildcard

Winter still does all his usual stuff: he patrols regularly around the ADI compound and the Dogtown fence. He eats lunch in the ADI cafeteria when he's on the campus. He reads out loud there, or in the park, or on a rooftop if he gets bored of (or paranoid about) the sidewalk. He practices with people or gives lessons in self-defense in the evenings at the ADI gym.

He's around, like always.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Winter is not stupid. Winter can tell when he's being intentionally led somewhere for violence. (Okay, maybe he is a little biased, though.) But he is also so frustrated now by how easily the bastard keeps losing him that he's willing to risk it.

He swings down from the roof, to the fire escape, to the ground behind where this Adam entered the alleyway.

He doesn't have a weapon out, but he has his metal arm ready in case Adam does.

Methos is halfway down the alley when he hears the dull reverberation of someone hitting the metal fire escape, and then the cracked and slushy pavement behind him. He turns, hands buried deep in his pockets, his slightly-hunched posture and the turned-up collar of his coat suggesting this has more to do with the February chill than any hidden weaponry he might have.

(Does have. It's been a very, very long time since he'd last willingly gone anywhere unarmed.)

His eyebrows lift as he notes the ever-so-slightly defensive nature of Winter's stance, skepticism writ clear in the lines of his expression. "And here I was wondering if you'd ever come out," he says.

"Who are you," Winter demands, stance not changing, but also a little surprised that there's no violence yet. Not complaining about that, though. "Nobody loses me as easily as you did." Not without magic. Or a whole hell of a lot of experience. Tracking people (in order to kill them) was his job.

Or it used to be. And while he might be a little less than he used to be physically, he still has the skills of a lifetime of assassinating people.

"Spot of memory trouble?" he asks, head canting slightly, like it's a possibility he's actually considering. Given the events of the previous month, that's not entirely implausible. "We've been introduced. Adam Pierson, currently with ADI's research division. I think the better question is, why the hell are you following me around on my day off?"

Winter gives a funny little shudder at the idea of memory problems. More memory problems. No, he knows the name the man gave him, and the profession. And that clearly isn't who this man is.

"No history teacher could lose me like that. I am highly skilled. I was a hunter and assassin in my world."

Methos goes dead still for a moment, then laughs, a low, short chuff of sound with nothing resembling humour in it. There's little motion as his hand curls carefully around the small pistol in his pocket. Little, but not absolutely none.

"Ah. I begin to see why ADI has so many missing employees. Tell me, are you hunting on their behalf, or on behalf of your patron?"

Winter's expression shifts from annoyed to downright offended. "If I were hunting you I would have shot you. Weeks ago. I do not feed the Stranger, and shooting you wouldn't feed it, anyway."

He scowls more, but gives him an answer he might actually believe. Maybe. "You are with Kate. Kate is my team." A pause, then he reluctantly uses the right word. "My family. I need to know who you are. If you are lying about who you are, she might not be safe."

"You say that," Methos says. "But here you are, stalking me. The shadow at the corner of my view, every late night fear of something not quite human lurking right behind me made manifest."

It's not even entirely bullshit - he'd been unnerved enough to take this particular risk, after all.

"I don't know what to tell you. I'm just a guy. If you're as good as you say, I shouldn't have even been able to spot you, unless some part of you wanted me to."

While maybe he feels a twinge of displeasure at any particular feeding of the Stranger, Winter has spent a whole lifetime being systematically manipulated and gaslit. He recognizes it, now, and that blots out any of the discomfort. He bares his teeth at Methos, almost animal-like. "You are lying to me now. You are not just a guy. You have a gun in your pocket right now that you're ready to shoot me with. I did not mess up."

"I said I'm just a guy. I never said I was unarmed. Or unwilling to defend myself against the admitted murderer who's been stalking me." It's desert dry. Really, all things considered, it's a surprise that more of ADI's extradimensional operatives haven't been shot by someone twitchy.

"I only murder avatars now, and people who hurt my team," Winter says, and he says it more like a threat than a reassurance. Any friendly feelings he might have had towards the man from their last conversation are gone, now, because he's lying to him in that sneaky, snaky way a handler would. "Do not hurt my team."

The look on his face is one of outright skepticism. Largely-recovered murderers are certainly not beyond the realm of possibility, as he should well know, but Winter...isn't really acting like one.

And then it clicks. A muscle in his jaw ticks, and it's all he can do to restrain himself from rolling his eyes.

"I'd ask you to name one person I've hurt since arriving here, but I'm beginning to suspect this is less about anything I've done, and more about your...possessiveness." There's a brief pause there, like he's substituted one word for another at the last moment.

"She isn't mine. She can do what she wants," Winter snorts. "If she wants to spend her time with you, I am not going to stop her. But that doesn't mean you get to hurt her. I followed you to learn more about you, but then you lost me and lied to me." He sounds positively offended by this. Because he is. And now doubting Kate's good sense a little bit.

Then again, she does hang around with two ex-assassins a lot. Maybe her good sense has always been a little lacking.

He finishes, "That is not looking good for your ability to not hurt her. Whatever you're hiding. You'd better tell her, even if you won't tell me."

"If you wanted to learn anything about me aside from how I like my coffee and what sort of books I buy, you should have asked," Methos says, clipped and annoyed. His hand eases ever so slightly around the weapon in his pocket, but doesn't yet withdraw.

"The answers wouldn't have been especially interesting, unless you're dazzled by the life of an untenured college professor, because all your fascinating paranoia aside, that's exactly what I am. But I might have been inclined to give them."

"I don't believe you," Winter says grumpily. "But I'm not the one you need to tell the truth to." He puts his knife away entirely and steps back, aiming to break this stupid, awful conversation and go home. He's clearly not getting any more out of this asshole.

Says, of course, the stalker.

[Log] Catch-All for February

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