▷ open & closed - get about as oiled as a diesel train

[lasttoolong]

Who: Logan (lasttoolong) & various
What: Settling in, getting to know people, starting fights.
When: Throughout May.
Where: Milton and surrounds.

Content Warnings: Potential violence, injury, talk of degenerative illness, inadvisable amounts of moonshine. More will be added if needed.

[ OOC: Open & closed starters will be posted to the comments. Feel free to throw wildcards either off the back of something else we've discussed, or something new you think would be neat! Or if you want to plot something out or request a closed starter, hit me up on Plurk (laetificat) or PM! ]

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▷ open - post-brawl - early May - I may use a little muscle to get what I need

[lasttoolong]

It doesn't take Logan very long to get an idea of how things work in Milton, at least when it comes to the little community that's sprung up around the empty town. In his experience, these things tend to go one of two ways: either everyone bands together for the good of their group, usually under some charismatic leader; or it becomes an all out war with every man for himself. Methuselah seems to be doing a pretty good job of keeping things together for now, but Logan doesn't doubt things could slide pretty easily, especially with supplies getting scarce. So he stays wary, watchful, a wolf on the edge of the pack.

But that doesn't mean he's beyond making a few mistakes. Pain, boredom and too much hard liquor is never a good combination. He wakes up in the days after the brawl with bruises stamped on his body that shouldn't be there, black smudges under his eyes and a boot print across his ribs, bones aching with a cold that can't be driven back no matter how close he sits to the wood stove in the little cabin he's claimed. But he keeps himself going, keeps his head down and goes about his business.

At least he can help. In the early days of the month he spends most of his time hunting for game outside the town. Under the bed in his new home he finds a rifle, the stock inscribed with unfamiliar initials, that just needs a little cleaning. It saves him using his claws on deer and larger game, which is useful, since his hands hurt enough without any more new cuts. The cabin also furnishes him with some cold weather clothing -- another unfamiliar need.

More than once he makes the short hike up to the hot springs, looking for something to ease the aches that come from hauling around his metal skeleton, not to mention the various injuries he's picking up. He's pretty shameless when it comes to stripping off, not caring if someone else is already in the springs before he starts shedding his clothes and sliding into the steaming water with a grateful noise.

When he's not out of town, Logan can be found in the Community Hall or out among the unused cabins, a cigar stuck between his teeth, investigating anything he might be able to fix or reclaim with the attitude of an experienced scavenger.

cabins!

[mordue]

"Find anythin' useful?"

Claudia's standing not far away when Logan emerges from a cabin, her small silhouette bordered by the faint moonlight. It's dark enough for her to be out, at last; tucked up in her her finely made, fur-lined coat, she looks as if she's just out for a simple evening stroll.

"I would've thought everyone else already took it all by now."

[lasttoolong]

The thing is, Logan's not used to being surprised. Until he arrived in this godforsaken freezer, he would have heard her arrive outside, would have been able to pick up on the scent of her breath and the sweat in her clothes, the musk of the fur she's wrapped in, even the oil she used on her hair. As it is, he doesn't spot her until he's heading out and sees her from one of the windows, irritated at being hunted down by whoever this is.

He steps out of the front door and closes it behind him, even though there's not much point. There's a cigar clamped between his teeth and fading bruises on his face.

"Not everything," he says, plucking the stogie out of his mouth and holding up a box of rifle ammunition, giving it a rattle as he drops down the porch steps and onto the crunch of the snow.

"If you're looking for a handout," he adds, slipping the ammo into the pocket of his jacket, "you're in the wrong place."

He doesn't wait around for a response, already starting off through the snow towards the next cabin.

[mordue]

"I don't want a handout."

It's hard to let go of the mindset that she doesn't need to look after herself like other people do, because she's stronger than other people are. She's lived like that longer than she's lived any other way. It's like losing the ability to breathe without making yourself do it, mechanically pulling in each breath and pressing it out. It makes it harder to go to sleep.

She follows him at something of a distance. "I don't know how to use a gun, anyway. Bullets wouldn't be much use to me."

[lasttoolong]

"Sure." Logan doesn't sound like he believes her, but he doesn't do anything to stop her following along through the snow. If she wants to watch him raid some poor snowbird's summer cabin, that's her business. She might look like a kid, but she's not his responsibility, and Logan is damned if he's going to pick up another stray in this mess.

He pauses for a moment when he reaches the boundaries of the next property, dulled senses stretched to make use of the thin moonlight bouncing off the snow and the fog. His breath plumes in front of him as he stands in the snow. If she moves behind him, he'll put out a hand to indicate that she should stop.

"Bear," he says, in a low voice. His gaze is fixed on a corner of the cabin up ahead, under the overhang of the porch, where a shadowed and furry shape is digging through what little remains of the garbage cans. "Stay still."

hunting

[killer]

Sam went out for a smoke and felt like she should offset the damage to her lungs, so a short stroll around the neighborhood turned into a hike through Milton's outskirts. Her built-in ability to keep warm allows her to roam further than she would otherwise dare; Sam only realizes how far out of the way she has traveled by trampling into someone's hunting grounds.

"Shit!" The deer she scared away disappears over a snowy hill and Sam has the good sense to look deeply apologetic as she turns to address the hunter. She approaches from an angle so he can see her coming but can't quickly aim his rifle her way. Just in case. "I'm sorry I ruined your shot. Do you smoke? I can make it up to you in cigarettes."

[lasttoolong]

It doesn't take much to startle a deer. A snapping twig, a shadow that looks wrong, a hint of a predator's scent on the breeze. Logan's spent a long time learning how to hunt, both with weapons and with his hands, and he knows how to be cautious, quiet and careful.

Which means nothing when his stalk is interrupted by another Interloper blundering through the brush like she's walking to the mall. As the deer turns and bolts into the trees, Logan straightens up from his crouch with a scowl, lowering his rifle from his shoulder.

"I'd rather have the deer than a cigarette, kid," he grouses, but only takes a beat or two to think about it before he sighs and starts forward to walk to where the deer was browsing, reaching out to touch some of the tough winter needles it was stripping from a nearby pine sapling.

"You coulda got shot. Stupid to be walking out here."

[killer]

Sam rolls her eyes, which won't help her beat the "kid" allegations but she is too annoyed to stop herself. She knows that she messed up and he has every reason to be upset but he made her feel defensive and now she has no choice but to double down.

"'Could've got shot' is a convenient way to frame it." She crosses her arms in front of herself and narrows her eyes at him, trying to look intimidating yet painfully aware that she is more likely coming off petulant. "If you could've shot me for walking by, maybe you shouldn't be out here with a rifle."

[lasttoolong]

Having faced down his fair share of moody teenagers by now, Logan doesn't react to the eyeroll beyond his scowl becoming a degree or so darker as he turns to look at her.

"Maybe you shouldn't have been walking by where you could've been shot," he points out, not avoiding a small amount of petulance himself. He's not exactly in a great mood, and the fog is thickening again, meaning that was probably the last decent shot he'll have for the rest of the day.

"What the hell are you doing out here anyway?"

community hall;

[castitas]

Kate found in the Community Hall most days; she lives there, but she always around — plenty work to be done with cooking and cleaning since everyone drops by. She's in the kitchen, getting through dishes, mentally singing church hymns. She's just about managed to not always broadcast her thoughts to the world around her but it still happens — the words to the air like some kind of religious radio station.

Someone else enters and while the singing stops, there's nothing more than a passing glance up from the dishes. She does a double take. It's the cigar she notes first, and she turns — flustering a little for a moment. "Um, excuse me. If you could not— oh."

She stops when she finally looks at the man properly. He's one of the newer Interlopers, she realises. And not only that— her expression dimming.

"It's you." she's not exactly thrilled, but she keeps her tone mild. "You're one of the ones from the fight."

The one with Wynonna. The one where Lieutenant Little got knocked out.

[lasttoolong]

The singing is what he hears first, leaking through some door in his mind already kicked open by Xavier and Jean, through the metal static of scar tissue and fractured memories. He assumes, as he walks in, that it's the kid in the little kitchen area, and doesn't notice that her mouth wasn't actually moving.

He's got the remnants of a snare in one hand, cigar in the other as he knocks icy slush off his boots. The bruises on his face are fading, thumbprints of purple under his eyes from the broken nose courtesy of Jason, and the bandages around his knuckles aren't bloodstained even if they are dirty from working out in the fog and the forest.

The girl's words have his eyebrows inching upwards. It's you is rarely the start of a friendly introduction, in Logan's experience. He scowls, then dismisses her, heading to one of the tables to set down the coils of wire and wooden pegs.

"Yeah, so what's it to you?"

[castitas]

Okay, wow. Rude, mister. Kate bristles a little but she pauses, letting the moment pass. Okay, fine. He's being defensive. She reaches for a dishtowel to dry off her hands; defensiveness or not, she's still pretty unhappy about what's happened — for a number of reasons.

"Wynonna's my friend." Being the first reason. Her getting shot last month being another, but she doesn't mention that part. Wynonna is a grown adult, yeah. And she's not entirely stoked about her actions of getting involved in that whole mess. "You were in the fight."

Which brings her to another point:

"The same one where Lieutenant Little got knocked out."

And she's even more unhappy about that.

[lasttoolong]

"That's his name?"

Logan doesn't look up at her, too busy untying the wire from around the pegs, careless of the melting snow and dirt he's leaving on the tabletop. No sense wasting it, when they've got such limited resources.

"He was the one who chose to get involved, kid. Let him live with the consequences. As for Wynonna -- she gave as good as she got." There's a hint of satisfaction to that last remark. He's not beyond hoping for another round with her.

▷ street brawl - for Jason & Wynonna and other participants - May 1st

[lasttoolong]

The afternoon had been a series of bad decisions. First, accepting, thanks to boredom and the deep aches in his bones, some chick's invitation for a drink. Second, allowing said chick -- Wynonna, as it turns out, a pretty name for a firecracker and Logan's kind of girl when she's not throwing punches at his face, or maybe even when she is -- to break out a poker game. Third, letting Jason join the game, and by this time Logan had been on the way to realising that drinking without a healing factor is completely different to drinking with one, especially when he's downing shots of some nasty rathole moonshine that tastes like the inside of a bathtub and burns like paint stripper.

Things got increasingly muddied after that, but he's pretty sure that the fourth mistake was somewhere around the time someone -- he's not sure who -- accused someone else of cheating, and then the table had been thrown over and fists were flying. More than capable of giving as good as he got even when drunk, Logan's pretty sure he landed a few before someone kicked him in the chest hard enough to send him flying out the door and skidding back into the snow across the street on his back.

At which point hell had pretty much broken loose.

Now, he's trading swings with Jason, ducking Wynonna when she comes flying at them both, trying to keep drinking from the bottle in his hand -- someone's already broken another one over his shoulder, judging by the glass sticking out of it, but he'll deal with it later. There's blood on his knuckles and singing in his ears, he's going to pay for it later but for now --

"Goddamn bird!" He yells, meaning Jason, and barrels directly for him, roaring.

[pacificator]

Logan's a pretty cool guy, all things considered. He's got those rough edges and that straightforward way she likes. Absolutely none of that stops her from flinging herself bodily at him as he charges Jason.

Who maybe deserves it. Who probably deserves it. But he'd been cool about her threatening to shoot him and her mind is more than a little fuzzy from the liquor and the rush of the fight itself. Both of them outweigh her by probably a combined hundred pounds, which means she can't just tackle Logan and tie him up on the ground. Instead, she rushes from the side and tangles his feet up with her leg, trying to trip him up.

Without waiting to see if he hits the ground, she rounds on Jason — she's got a fuzzy memory of him kicking Logan out the door and starting this whole thing — and doesn't hesitate before cocking her right arm back and throwing a hook straight at his jaw.

The half-healed wound in her arm is a bright star of pain. She ignores it.

[reneger]

Step one in breaking up a fight: separate everyone who's fighting. Which had been what Jason was originally going for, somewhere between the bitching going on between those at the card table. Unfortunately for everyone involved, Jason is shit at breaking up fights, and the moment a fist nails him in the side of his face, he's all for making it worse. His boot shoves against Logan's chest to get him straight out of the bar, with Jason following up behind him fully intended on kicking the hell out of him for fuck if he knows what reason, Logan clearly started it, it doesn't matter anymore.

Except Logan's coming at him too quickly, there's a glass bottle shattering against his back, several pieces of glass sticking straight into his skin, Wynonna's there tackling Logan down to the floor before she's slamming something into his jaw. Jason bites down hard on his tongue before he falls backward onto his ass, head reeling.

Spits out the blood pooling in his mouth before he shoves his way back up as best as he can, intent on ramming straight through Wynonna to get at Logan. "I don't wanna hear shit from you!"

[lasttoolong]

When he's not drunk off his ass, Logan is pretty capable of dealing with someone tripping him up. In the right circumstances, he'd drop into a roll and pop up again, ready to start swinging. But now, with the world tilting alarmingly under his feet, he's too slow and already plunging forward by the time Wynonna tangles her leg through his.

He stumbles and goes down hard, all three hundred pounds of adamantium hitting the frozen mud like a sack of bricks, knocking the wind and most of the sense out of him. The bottle of moonshine in his hand goes flying out and shatters in the slush.

Growling and shaking his head like a bear, Logan rolls over as Wynonna steps over him to get at Jason, though Jason's willing to give as good as he gets. This time Logan's ahead of them both; he pushes himself up onto his hands and knees in time to be there so Wynonna's recovery and Jason's rush should send them over him and onto the dirt.

That done, he scrambles up, spitting curses.

"Fuckin'.. idiots," he snarls, aiming a clumsy kick at the both of them.

▷ after the brawl - for Daisy

[lasttoolong]

Somehow he ends up back where he started, or at least close to it -- lying on his back in a dirty snowbank, dizzy and bloodied, staring up at a cold and indifferent sky. The pain isn't a problem, pain is an old friend, but this time there isn't the itchy burn of his healing factor chasing it along his skin and burrowing deep into his bones. It just hurts and will go on hurting.

"Shit," he mutters, to nobody in particular. The world spins slowly around him. There are raised voices, the sounds of a scuffle still going on -- presumably someone trying to separate Wynonna and Jason, or some other shit going on. Logan presently doesn't have the energy or the compulsion to lift his head and look. He makes a fist with one hand and feels the ache and split of the cuts between his knuckles, which had only just closed, now opened up again. New scars forming, for the first time ever.

No, really:

"Shit."

[chuju]

With how quiet Milton usually is, probably at least half the town heard the fight. Daisy certainly did, the sounds rushing through frigid air to reach her as she reacquainted herself after being away for a few days in Lakeside. With a heavy sigh, she makes her way through the streets toward the commotion, her assumption of the source being a brawl of some sort proven correct as she finally gets close enough for visual confirmation.

She recognizes a few faces involved, even has names for some of them, but it's the guy on the ground who really catches her attention. Another sigh puffs out in front of her mouth as she trudges forward, resigned to her position in things, and stops next to the prone body making a dent in the bloodied snowbank. Leaning over to be sure she's in his line of sight, she takes in the sorry state of him.

"You know, I thought we talked about you not hurting yourself," she comments, her tone more tired than accusatory, with a little concern mixed in for good measure. "Maybe I wasn't as clear as I hoped."

[lasttoolong]

A vague shape swims out of the gloomy cloud cover and resolves into the shape of Daisy, gazing down at him with an appropriate amount of disgust for his current circumstances. Logan frowns drunkenly back up at her, though he doesn't move. The cold is starting to seep into his body, making getting up less appealing as his extremities go numb.

"Pretty sure I hurt the other guy worse," he points out in a thick and gritty voice. As if that helps.

[chuju]

Even if she couldn't recognize the signs of drunkenness, she can smell the alcohol wafting off him. A good whiff and her frown deepens before her expression shifts to exasperation at his statement. Is he serious?

"You think that makes this better?" There's a harsh edge to her tone now, an acerbic edge to the words. "We don't have a hospital here. We don't even have proper supplies for a clinic! I see those cuts on your hands — what the hell were you trying to do with those things?"

Is she making him feel physically worse? Tough shit. Just wait until he has a hangover and she really gets going.

▷ a day or so post-brawl - for Wynonna

[lasttoolong]

It turns out that hangovers are pretty bad if you haven't really had one for over a century. And they're even worse when you've been drinking the kind of nasty homemade moonshine that should've been put to better use cleaning old cast iron pots. So it's more than a day or so before Logan manages to emerge from the shack he's taken over, feeling a fraction less like he's been run over by a steamroller but still grimacing in the low, endless sunlight as it bounces off the snow and fog. Regret wars with the pain in his skull. He spends a few minutes seriously considering hiking out into the forest and staying there, but ends up turning towards town instead. At least the town has coffee.

He stumps into the Community Hall without looking around, just in case someone wants to try and make a point of bringing up the fight, most of which he can't fully remember. His nose is still swollen, the skin split across the bridge where his metal bone structure refused to yield, black thumbprints of bruises across his cheeks. There are new bandages wrapped around his knuckles and he walks with the stiffness of a man working through old pain.

The pot of coffee is at least easy to find even without enhanced senses, a piece of familiarity from his time spent in communal living spaces -- he's heading straight for it when he realises that he knows at least one person already there.

"Sorry about the.." He spares a sideways glance at Wynonna as he looks for a cup, trying to piece together the injuries she'd already had and the new ones from their brawl. He ends up hedging his bets. "Arm."

[pacificator]

His footsteps come stomping toward her and the coffee and it makes her wonder all over again: what's his deal? He's a big guy, but not that big. And nothing about his size explains the way her shin is bruised from knee to the top of her foot, the flesh tender and puffy and micro-fractures cobwebbing the bone like she'd kicked a tree at full force. "That wasn't you."

The arm, anyway, which is currently back up in a sling at her side. Wynonna finishes dumping some powdered creamer into her coffee and steps back to give him space, canting her head toward her right shoulder in a gesture. "Got shot last month. Throwing a punch with it is on me."

He looks about as good as she feels; at least her face isn't as marked up as his is, as Jason's is. "You look like shit."

[lasttoolong]

The coffee takes up most of his attention; it's easier than receiving the measuring looks from her, which make him want to bristle with an uneasy mingling of guilt and resentment, and a decent helping of shame. Getting into a brawl in the middle of the street isn't a good way to ingratiate yourself with new people and he knows better -- but he can't always control himself, and it's galling to realise that he's still little better than an wild animal when he's in that state.

His jaw is set, a tension in the line of his shoulders as he pours himself a cup, taking it black and bitter.

"Thanks," he growls. He wants to leave, but he feels as though he owes her an explanation, so he looks over at her once he's taken a mouthful of hot, strong coffee.

"I don't usually get drunk like that. I mean, I do -- but I used to be able to shake it off easier. I used to be able to heal. Here.." He lifts his bandaged hand and flexes his fingers demonstratively. "Not any more. Not exactly how I wanted to make friends."

[pacificator]

"There are worse ways." She doesn't hold any of it against him... well, aside from clocking Little, but that had been a heat of the moment kind of thing, not something personal.

Besides, however sore and bruised she is, she feels a little better, now, than she had before. Wynonna sips at her coffee and leans back against the counter, eyeing him speculatively. "Sucks. You could really use a healing ability here. Every damn thing in this place has tried to kill us at least once, including the fog."

Her glance flicks to his hand as he flexes his fingers, and she reaches out to tap the bandaged space between his knuckles. "By the way, what the fuck's the deal with the claws? They're a hell of an accessory."