pullmeoutalive | log > for lack of a better place to do so

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log > for lack of a better place to do so

He had to wonder how it was that, if no one save a very, very select few could leave Whitechapel, he kept ending up elsewhere. Indeed, this wasn't the steam-driven, smog-choked section of city he called home. This was somewhere else entirely - and startlingly modern in comparison to the Victorian England he was so used to.

It was unseemly of him, but he found himself staring - tall buildings all steel and glass towered over him, and over that lay the clearest sky he'd seen in his entire life. The sun was bright, brighter that it had ever been in Whitechapel, with its constant overhang of smoke. All the better, he supposed, that he was wearing his usual attire, complete with dark glasses.

Alabaster stood alone on the street, a tall figure in smoke black stark against the clean, polished world he now found himself in. There seemed to be no one around. This city, if it was indeed a city and not some ludicrous dream, appeared to be deserted.

He reached into the pocket of his coat, fishing out a pocket watch. In this alien place, was Grandfather Clock - his God, and God over Whitechapel - still watching him through the clockface? Or had the connection been severed with his sudden disappearance?

Such things would be answered in due time, he told himself. For now, there was only the question of getting back. It wouldn't do to have Grandfather Clock's elite agent up and vanish in the middle of a rebellion, now would it?

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The sun was a little lower in the sky when Saga and Alabaster set forth from the apartment in pursuit of a worthy disguise for the latter-- and it had dipped even lower by the time the former had realized that the mall was the other way.

Somehow, they'd made it there without ending up in the wrong city entirely (which, thankfully, she'd only managed once), and had left the question of men's fashion to one of the clerks. She hadn't seen Alabaster since he'd been hauled off, and was starting to consider trying to relocate him, having entertained thoughts of him tangled up in dress shirts or inadvertently cutting up slacks or worse.

The clerk had been annoying, but informative nonetheless. More than once he'd insisted Alabaster remove his coat to try on something or other, and Alabaster had vehemently refused. The slight amiableness he'd adopted with Saga was nowhere to be found, and the stone-faced, no-nonsense agent was back in full-force. At long last, the clerk gave him a sizable pile of things to try on and gladly left him in a fitting room.

After a while he emerged, wearing a white collared shirt beneath a black suit jacket (as much as he hated leaving the thing unbuttoned, all of the posters and mannequins around the store begged to differ), and a pair of jeans. The shoes were his own, but he saw no reason to get new ones when the old ones seemed to complete the ensemble just as well. In one hand was his own soot-stained outfit, in the other a couple of changes of clothes in similar style and functionality as the one he now wore.

Now, where had Saga gone off to?

"Excuse me, sir." The delicate tap came from behind, where Saga now stood, head tilted and looking utterly solemn and inquisitive. "I seem to have lost my friend; have you seen him? He kind of looks like you, only with a longer coat and looking like he took a roll in a fireplace."

Stone-faced no-nonsense agent or not, it looked as though Hermes' granddaughter never changed.

Truth be told, he wasn't entirely sure if she was joking or not. His eyebrows went up, his earlier hostility receding now that he was in familiar company. "I beg your pardon?"

The calm stare was instantly replaced with a grin that left no doubt as to who she was descended from. While part of her rejoiced that her poker face had only gotten better over the years, the other part was pleased that she'd been able to coax an expression out of him that wasn't stern, stoic, or any other similar looks.

"In other words, you're looking good. I almost didn't recognize you! Did you have any trouble?"

Alabaster frowned a bit. He should have known better, but he supposed he could blame lack of human company (other than the Gold Cloaks, who didn't much like him anyway) for his oblivious reaction.

"Truth be told, I think I annoyed the clerk," he replied with a shrug.

"Oh, him?" Saga snorted lightly, almost dismissively. "He's always like that. If anything, you were good practice for his patience and tolerance level. Or his girlfriend's, anyway, when he goes home to complain to her about the thrills of retail. But come on..." She nudged him towards the register. "Business first."

Only then did it occur to Alabaster that he was completely and utterly broke. "Miss Laskaris," he said (for she hadn't told him to refer to her by her first name, and he was still a gentlemen after all), glancing over his shoulder at her. "I don't have the funds for all of this..." He frowned again. "Or any of it, for that matter."

"Saga," she said automatically as she brushed past him, slipping her hand into her jacket pocket and producing a small, plastic card, which she then handed over to the disgruntled-looking clerk. "It's less of a mouthful. And don't worry about that, I've got you covered."

Already she was bidding farewell to eating out for the next month or so, but desperate times called for desperate depleting of her paychecks. She'd worked overtime so many times, anyway, that she'd be caught up again in no time.

The last thing Alabaster wanted to be was a burden. He hefted his bags, still frowning (and ignoring the dirty look the clerk was shooting him). "Saga, you've already done more than enough. If there's any way I can repay you, just ask." Okay, so maybe a burden was the second-to-last thing he wanted to be. The last thing he wanted to be was indebted to someone.

What was it with every single male she knew not being content to just say "Thank you" and be done with it? Saga kept her eyes trained on the counter, automatically signing the receipt when it was presented, and put the card back in its original resting-place. It wasn't until they'd exited the store that she finally replied.

"You're giving me the honor of your company, and you're helping enough with my rune problem. As far as I'm concerned, there's nothing you need to repay."

That hardly seemed like adequate repayment, but if it worked for her then who was he to argue? "If you say so," he remarked. He half-remembered her jokingly mentioning hiring him as a housekeeper, and he made a mental note to help her out if he could, if only to soothe his own conscience.

Agreeable enough; her brothers could have taken a lesson from him (the thought of any of them with several sets of arms, however, was spine-chilling).

"That takes care of the disguise aspect, which leaves us... the wandering."

Their earlier detour on the way to the mall was still fresh in his mind - interesting that Saga, who lived here, couldn't find her own way around. Still, he figured even in wandering aimlessly, he would still get to see the place. "Lead on, then."

[[quick tag, since I will have company for the rest of the night!]]

She could never claim to possess an unerring sense of direction, because that would have been a flat-out lie. Truth be told, Saga had been getting lost in new and interesting ways ever since she had been old enough to walk five steps without tipping over. Her only comfort was that she eventually ended up where she wanted to be, and her detours took her to places she never would have discovered on her own.

"You're putting a lot of faith in me, aren't you?" She muttered, nonetheless obeying and setting off for... nowhere in particular.

Alabaster followed, keeping quiet. He was much too intent on the scenery for conversation. And while Saga's lack of direction might prove to be a good thing for seeing the city in its entirety (whether she meant to show him or not), it wasn't much good for forming a mental map, but he would try his damnedest.

While part of the duo remained silent, the other had taken it upon herself to once again adopt the role of (haphazard and slightly lackadaisical) tour guide. Whenever they passed a site that looked even vaguely familiar, she would point it out and provide an astonishing amount of detail about its history and purpose, right before she bounced off again.

He really hoped there wouldn't be a test on all of this. He'd had so much information packed into his head in the last few hours that even for Alabaster, who'd always been a fairly quick learner, it was beginning to be too much. Still, he had to admire Saga's passion for detail. Whether he would remember all of it or not later, he was her captive audience now.

"... We may have to call it quits for today." Sounding reluctant to stop now when they'd made so much progress, Saga nevertheless stopped to catch her breath by leaning against the side of an old store (whose dirty windows still offered a sale on Valentine's Cards for "That Special Flame In Your Heart"). "I know it's a lot to take in, so thanks for bearing with me... but it looks like it's going to rain soon, and that won't be good for either of us."

"It's been my pleasure, Saga," he replied with a small nod.

Alabaster was curiously inspecting the ancient display in the store window when a raindrop splashed onto his nose. It seemed Saga's prediction for the weather was indeed correct. He looked up, only to be assaulted with more drops, coming swifter and in greater numbers by the second. "We'd best hurry."

The smaller of the two nodded agreement, seeing no need for a vocal answer. Instead, she merely offered him a smile and broke into a jog, heading straight on an unerring course for the only place she could locate every time.

Other than the coffee shop, but that was just luck. When it came down to that, home was always the final goal, and she always found her way back with as much ease as it typically took to get herself lost in the first place.

Alabaster followed easily. Running in the clear air, in the clean rain, was almost more refreshing than the shower he'd taken at Saga's place. If there was one thing about this place that he would miss when he returned to Whitechapel, it would be the clear sky. The smog and ash were an integral part of the city and its Gods, he knew that, but having been without it, even for a short time, was rejuvenating. He would never in his long, long life forget the feeling of running in the rain.

Despite Saga's best efforts and Alabaster's accommodating speed, the rain proved merciless and, by the time she located the apartment, wrenched the door open, and staggered in, she was drenched.

"D-damn," she managed to gasp out, brushing dark strands of hair away from her eyes and trying to tug off her shoes, "it feels more like we swam he-- whoa!"

In retrospect, she shouldn't have left the stack of dictionaries so close to the door. Especially not when she was dripping and leaving slick spots on the floor, which led to one wrong step, and skidding, and tripping, and--

It really was a miracle that she'd survived so long on her own.

If there was one thing to be said about Alabaster, it was that he had extraordinary reflexes. (When his chief weapons were his own arms, he sort of had to have them.) A couple quick steps and he was there to steady her, an arm looped around her waist. A mechanical limb extended from his free arm, the metallic fingers gripping the doorjamb to keep his own balance on the slippery floor. His shopping bag lay forgotten just inside the doorway. "Easy there."

"I'm okay," came the hoarse, embarrassed mutter-- and anyone would have been embarrassed to have been caught around the waist with one arm still outstretched to break her fall, and the rest of her body awkwardly tensed. That tension vanished once she'd reassured herself that she wasn't about to have a grand reunion with the ground, as she'd been previously fearing.

She lingered for a few more seconds until she'd made sure she was properly braced, and then nodded to him. "I'd say you just saved me a few bruises."

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