Unfortunate Coincidence [Letty/Adam]

[Adam Milligan]

[adam]Key West is a good place to be invisible when you're young, broke, and illegal. Adam had found a two hundred buck a week motel where they didn't ask for ID and didn't care if you paid in creased fives and twenties. He was running the lost-luggage scam at Key West International, the security in the outlying storage here was even worse than in Raleigh and the security and baggage handlers seemed to be more honest. Left more for him when he got there. There were drugs everywhere, and lots of them prescription rather than street. Good for him, other than pot none of the street stuff did him any good.

All in all he was doing okay. Not great, there was no such thing as doing great in his current state. But he'd been alive again for almost two months and he hadn't gotten sucked into anything to do with angels and demons yet. Well, just that one thing that was why he left North Carolina. The demons had gone down handily enough, but once they'd found him once it was time to move on. He'd bought a hoopty pickup off Craigslist and driven south until there wasn't any more south to go.

Tonight he was sitting on a bench outside a thrift shop a few blocks from the beach, chainsmoking and re-reading A Storm of Swords while he waited to get a sense of the police and security patrols before he broke into the print shop across the street. He needed new IDs and he didn't have his half-brothers' skill in whipping them up in a Kinkos. He needed a chance to practice. A laminator, a good supply of the right kind of card stock, a blue backdrop. He needed to work at it, make some mistakes.

The cop car rolled by again. Forty minutes. He shoved the Kindle into his pocket and cruised lazily down to the alley on the corner, down the damp and ill-lit corridor to the fire door. Everybody tries to get all fancy about picking locks or torch-cutting the bolt. A sawed-off loaded with a single shell packed with plaster of paris and ground-down pencil graphite will take out any lock you care to fight. One muffled bang and the door swung right open. He was in and out in nine minutes, then walked away with a backpack stuffed full of equipment and a sawed-off in a duct-tape holster under the flap of his jacket.

Back out on the street, walking along casually, he could have been a nice suburban boy on vacation. At least he could until he managed to walk straight into shop door as it opened and end up staggering back, clutching his broken nose and allowing his jacket to swing open and show the makeshift holster. Whoops.[/adam]

[Letty Halvoni]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=valign,top][atrb=style, background: url(http://i50.tinypic.com/2j5i0rt.jpg) center bottom no-repeat; outline: 1px solid #384214; width: 500px; height: 601px; padding: 0px;, bTable] There were days off, and then there were days off. The latter of which didn't include being attached to a beeper whose number was plugged into the nearest hospital's emergency room 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Those kind of days off were few and far between, so she'd used this one to take full advantage of the offered frozen margaritas and night surfing lesson she'd gotten from a local instructor she'd met the previous afternoon in a thrift store. With a beach tote slung over her shoulder, she was walking back toward her hotel, looking exactly like her hair had just air dried, after spending hours in the salt water. She was across the street from where Adam was walking, glancing in his general direction and hoping to spot somewhere to grab a late night snack from a place that didn't look like it had just barely cleared the health department code inspection, and she'd caught sight of him connecting with the open door. She couldn't hear the effect the collision had on his face from where she was, but the way he was clutching his nose and had gone wobbly on his feet had her crossing to get a closer look. There was blood seeping through his fingers and she reached a hand out instinctively to grasp his wrist while her other hand was pressed against his lower back to stabilize him in case he went rigid with shock. "Easy. Easy." Her voice was nearly a coo, "I'm Letty, I'm a doctor, let me see your nose." In medical school, the importance of asking a patient's permission was ground into you so hard it became second nature. But for Letty, having spent the majority of her time patching up hunters who more often than not had been literally dragged to her door against their will, making her intentions known without leaving room for arguments had proved to be more efficient. "Here, sit," She slid the hand at his back around to help guide him, and her fingers found the holster at his waist. She glanced down to make sure that she'd actually felt that, and when she got the visual confirmation she jostled the holster, and lowered her voice to ask, "if I walk away from here with your blood all over my hands, am I going to wind up in jail as an accessory to something?" Her mind went to hunter, but the kid was young and running into doors in Key West so she was hoping for one of those wanna-be street thugs that were actually harmless without their circle of friends and encouragement. [style=padding: 0px 10px; font-size: smaller;] Location: Key West Streets Outfit: lookie here Notes: [/style]

[Adam Milligan]

[adam]"No," he said, or more exactly sort of gurgled. "Long's nobody looks in m'bag." An unwary inhale had him aspirating some of the blood that was dripping down the back of his throat and then he was leaning forward on the bench, coughing and gagging and each paroxym sending a bright flare of agony through him as it jostled his nose.

In a sick way, he was handling the pain better than he might have because of his practice in the cage. It was one of those thoughts that he would never speak aloud because you really can only be so pathetic, Adam had been conditioned for torture and so a broken nose was only so upsetting. That didn't mean he liked breathing in aerosolized blood, though, and thus the puking and coughing and little groans in between.

When the worst of that passed, he cautiously shed his jacket, folding it off to one side so that the gun didn't show, and then pulled off his already-ruined t-shirt to start wiping away the worst of the blood. He wasn't worried about showing the anti-possession tattoo, nor the various Enochian spells inked into his chest and shoulders. Nobody was likely to recognize them for what they were, especially not the spells. Enough dumbass kids got shit they didn't understand tattooed onto them all the time that people just assumed it was gibberish. The last girl he'd tried (and ultimately failed) to have sex with had asked if it was Elven. He'd said yes.[/adam]

[Letty Halvoni]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=valign,top][atrb=style, background: url(http://i50.tinypic.com/2j5i0rt.jpg) center bottom no-repeat; outline: 1px solid #384214; width: 500px; height: 601px; padding: 0px;, bTable] "Fair enough." Because it wasn't like she hadn't participated in her fair share of petty, and not so petty, crimes. Forged IDs, impersonating Crime Scene personnel, breaking and entering, and God only knows how many thousands of dollars she'd lifted from hospitals over the years in medical supplies not because she couldn't afford them or didn't have the clearance, but because there was no explainable reason for why she needed to have things like heavy duty gauze and nasal splints on her person at all times. "Here." Gentle, but firm, and she took the shirt from his hand, placing it next to him on the bench and moving his hands out of the way before pulling out a handi-pac sized packet of antiseptic wipes, some gauze, and two prescription vials. "This is going to hurt. Just for a second." The only warning she gave before inserting a bit of gauze up each nasal passage. Once that was done, she opened the packet of wipes and began wiping away the blood streaks left behind by the tshirt, leaving his face a clean, sterile place to continue treatment. "It's broken. And might need realigning. We won't know until the swelling goes down. Three to five days." She opened both of the vials and shook out three pills, a nasal decongestant and Acetaminophen-Codeine. "Take these, they'll help." Again not being the most explanatory, having discovered the big words just made her sound pompous and that most people didn't care what you were doing, so long as you made the pain go away, free and without too many questions. She reached into her bag again and pulled out an instant cold compress, applying pressure to activate the chemical reaction inside the package that turned it colder than ice within just a minute or two. Leaned back at this angle, she noticed the ink and was relieved for about two minutes when she thought the tattoos were confirmation that she did in fact have a wanna-be thug on her hands. After the initial 120 seconds, she sighed, "why couldn't you have turned to drugs and wearing slouchy jeans like a normal kid your age?" She put the compress in his hand, "hold it to your nose, and keep your head up, don't apply too much pressure." She didn't usually tie any demands to her services, but it wasn't an every day thing to find someone who was attempting to hide from the Angels permanently, "and then you can tell me who you are, and why you've got Enochian symbols all over yourself." [style=padding: 0px 10px; font-size: smaller;] Location: Key West Streets Outfit: lookie here Notes: [/style]

[Adam Milligan]

[adam]He looked at the pills but didn't reach for them. "No prophoxyphene, no tramadol. I'm on asenapine and procyclidine." Yeah, it was a little bit of a test, whether she'd recognize the antipsychotic cocktail and the painkillers that he needed to avoid. If she was just a nice chick who happened to carry a high-end first aid kit in her purse, he needed to make his own judgments about how much of her advice to follow. Not that his judgment was at its best right now, the taste of blood and bile on the back of his tongue was eroding the control he usually kept against the hallucinations and the panic.

When she asked about the tattoos he dropped his eyes and lied, "Name's James. And they're cool, huh? I found a website that translates English to Enochian. This one," he touched his shoulder, "is a quote from Call Me Maybe. Fuckin' love that song, me and my ex used to use it for our ring tones, when she dumped me I kinda had to do it." He had no idea whether he sounded convincing or not. There was a rising jitteriness in his chest that he knew all too well. He was going to need to get back to the motel soon, smoke a bowl and see if it'd calm him down. If not he'd need to take another round procyclidine or he'd end up pacing all night and chewing on the insides of his cheeks.[/adam]

[Letty Halvoni]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=valign,top][atrb=style, background: url(http://i50.tinypic.com/2j5i0rt.jpg) center bottom no-repeat; outline: 1px solid #384214; width: 500px; height: 601px; padding: 0px;, bTable] "How much of each are you taking?" That mixture of medications typically wasn't common for people this young, the side effects from the combination out weighing the lessening of the tremors the first caused. One bit of beneficial information she got from him was that his chances of going into shock at some point in the next five minutes was vastly higher than someone who wasn't already mentally unbalanced. Also? That is was entirely possible he was dealing or partaking in the illegal black market prescription meds and learned all the technical names that way. She put the Codeine enhanced pill back in it's vial and took out straight Acetaminophen instead. She held out her hand again, "these are just pseudoephedrine and acetaminophen. You should be okay to take them, so long as you're taking your other prescriptions as directed." She pressed her lips together, nodding and looking over his ink again before making a face, "being that just about everyone loves that song, whether they'll admit it out loud or not, you should probably get your money back, or sue. because that's not what that says." His tattoo looked identical to the markings her Nana had plastered all over her house, along with the Devil's traps, and Anasazi symbols, that she'd made her study long and hard as a child so she knew what they all meant and how and when to use them effectively. She looked up to study his face after she'd said it. There was a chance that he'd gotten duped when he'd gotten his tattoo, and was on that whirlwind of meds because he was just a messed up kid, but the chances of her finding a normal person in medical need were nil as of late, so she didn't hold her breath. [style=padding: 0px 10px; font-size: smaller;] Location: Key West Streets Outfit: lookie here Notes: [/style]

[Adam Milligan]

[adam]He took the pills from her, but also pulled out his phone and checked the online PDR at drugs.com before he popped them in his mouth. This lady was nice and all, helpful with the nice medications and hot as hell to look at, but that didn't mean that he had any reason to trust her medical opinions.

"How d'you know what they say?" He chewed and swallowed the pills dry, in fine junkie tradition. "You read Enochian or something?" He tried to sound scornful instead of like he was dreading the possibility that she'd say 'yes'.

Adam blotted his face with his balled-up shirt again and then looked around the street. They weren't drawing no attention, but people seemed to be assuming that Letty had things handled and weren't rushing over. Still, he said, "I should get going. No reason to sit here and bleed all over the curb." Especially with several thousand dollars worth of stolen print equipment in his backpack.[/adam]

[Letty Halvoni]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=valign,top][atrb=style, background: url(http://i50.tinypic.com/2j5i0rt.jpg) center bottom no-repeat; outline: 1px solid #384214; width: 500px; height: 601px; padding: 0px;, bTable] "I couldn't read a novel written in it, but my Grandmother could. And my dad could have too, probably. They taught me enough." His mother had been the one to teach Letty, after all, although it was her mom who was always better with the languages and having a little bit of knowledge about a whole lot of things all stored to her memory for any time they might need it. Dad had always focused more on instinct and good old fashioned violence. She let that hang there, her brows pinched higher on her forehead, eyes watching James's face carefully to see how he reacted to what she'd said. He was already getting twitchy, surveying their surroundings, looking like he was preparing to take off down the sidewalk. "You really should get that nose taken care of properly. I didn't notice any places the bone broke through, but I haven't given it a full exam, you could need stitches somewhere up your nostrils." She was lying, she'd looked close enough to know that wasn't necessary, but the kid seemed like he needed more help than he wanted to admit and she didn't have anything better to do, anyways. "If you're not into hospitals, at least let me keep an eye on it until the swelling goes down, if you're lucky it could be close enough to normal by the end of the night." That part was genuine, his nose had a fifty fifty chance of needing to be realigned, and it would take several hours for it to've gone down enough to know for sure. "I'm staying just up the block, across the street. It's a nice hotel, with lots of security," a beat, "just throwing that out there should either of us wind up being a serial killer." [style=padding: 0px 10px; font-size: smaller;] Location: Key West Streets Outfit: lookie here Notes: [/style]

[Adam Milligan]

[adam]Well, fuck. How many people in Key West, Florida could read Enochian? Two, apparently. Just shows what he got for buying into blonde beach bunny stereotypes. Or, more to the point, in trusting to his luck. He had no luck and he knew it, why did he ever assume things would go smooth?

Adam gave Letty a long, wary look. "No health insurance." It wasn't even a lie, it's hard to get Blue Cross when you're dead. A hard minute's thought and then he said, "My place. It's not nice, and doesn't have lots of security, but if you really think I'm gonna attack you and try to rape and murder you when my nose is the size and shape of a beefsteak tomato you're a lot more paranoid than you need to be. And if I do, all you have to do is poke me between the eyes and I'll fall over screaming. But my stuff's at my place. My meds." A very broad term for the cocktail of black-market and flat out illegal substances he dosed himself with, but certainly more polite than the truth could have been.

"Or you can just let me go and figure you've done your duty. That's cool too. You've been nice and all, but I'm not really your problem." Except with the Enochian and the way she was watching him, Adam had a sinking suspicion that maybe he was her problem, or she was his.[/adam]