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[theweakhavepurpose]

Who: This walking disaster Deputy Pratt and YOU!
What: Pratt needs new clothes desperately and to wash his Deputy uniform. Send help.
Where: Around the shops on the East island, later the laundry room in his tiny house in Love's housing area.
When: 7/18
Warnings: Should be exceptionally G-rated. Preemptive minor warning for death or cannibalism mentions if anyone asks about why his clothes are so gross.


Pratt has been here for about a week now, granted it doesn't feel that long because he spent a big chunk of that time sleeping and recuperating, but he's been here long enough to feel comfortable leaving the house he basically stole. No one's tried to attack him, and staring out the window like a creeper for several days makes him cautiously optimistic that no one is going to. After his time in the coliseum he got as far away from there as he could, walked up to the first house he saw, made sure there was no one in there, locked the door then wedged a chair under the handle just to be safe, and passed out face first on the bottom bunk for about two days.

By this point he's drunk a gallon of water straight out of the tub faucet, eaten what he thinks might be canned carrots (he hopes), and has taken the longest, hottest shower imaginable. However his clothes are absolutely rank. He's been wearing the same outfit for months while he was Jacob's captive, and laundry facilities were not on the top of the list for necessities in a doomsday bunker. He needs another shower after being back in them for twenty minutes. It's not even regular 'clothes that have been worn too long' corn chip smell, it's blood and guts and sweat and death. The human butcher shop he's been living in has soaked into every fiber of his uniform and he desperately needs to get rid of that.

The guy who saved him from the kabutops, who's name he does not remember at all, had said he can take things from the shops around, and whether that's true or not - he's going to do it. So he's left his gun behind because this will be a quick run to get something that doesn't smell like human entrails and then he's going to lock himself back in his house and try and figure out how to work the glass and porcelain laundry machine with the buttons that look like they're written in Klingon. He does have his sledgehammer because he's not going anywhere without some weapon to protect himself, but the gun is too big and unwieldy to to carry around with one hand, and hadn't been effective on the monsters he'd seen recently anyway.

He can be found poking through the stores, trying to find anything to wear so he doesn't have to stand around naked while doing laundry. Or furtively wandering the streets trying to not attract attention and inadvertently making himself ten times more suspicious looking.

Comments

[circumitus]

Rey has reasons to frequent the eastern island when she does leave her workshop at the Speakeasy. The orchards are pivotal in distilling some of the myriad liquors she distributes and there's still a need for food when they start running short on something. So she's got a bag and a sizeable wheelbarrow outside to help transport goods from one island to the southside more smoothly.

However, her search for finding anything good at the shops is swiftly halted when she catches a whiff of something that would probably make her vomit, if it wasn't a stench she was all too familiar with.

"Holy shit, is there a reason you smell like a hobo who crawled out of a body farm?"

This guy's body language is way too skittish to peg him for a kill-crazy psycho like Caedra, though maybe he's just afraid of getting caught.

[theweakhavepurpose]

Grown men really shouldn't skitter, but caught by surprise he darts away to safety. He plasters himself to a wall, back protected so he can't be flanked.

Of course this looks absolutely ridiculous since he's holding a sledgehammer the whole time. And he feels immediately stupid since the person addressing him is just someone walking around with a wheelbarrow and not a gun toting fanatic ready to sacrifice him.

He relaxes somewhat, lowering the sledgehammer to his side. "I know!" He grumbles, scrunching up his nose. "Because I did. I'm trying to fix it."

At least he took a shower, it was worse before.

[circumitus]

This isn't behavior Rey hasn't seen before. Usually someone has to have gone through something several ways of fucked up to get that jumpy, even in this place. It's good that she rarely does come packing with heavy artillery, given that she looks like someone who could punch a hole through concrete as it is. And that's without being able to set a fucker on fire.

She just arches a brow at his response. That's... not entirely what she was expecting. Maybe for him to make up some stupid excuse got why he reeks so much that it's physically nauseating to breathe through her nose.

"Seriously?" Well why didn't you say so, dude? (He just did.) "Why the hell don't you just get some new clothes?"

The selection isn't the most stylish, but Rey can't bring herself to be picky, given how many clothes she's gone through from combat.

[theweakhavepurpose]

"I'm working on it!" Pratt stares at her then at the ground. His nerves are getting the best of him again and he takes a deep breath, be strong. Sure she looks like she could break him like a twig, but he's got a sledgehammer and he's not in immediate danger of dying. Trying to focus on calming down he leans the sledgehammer against his leg so he can run his hands through his hair. Then grimaces, "It's in my hair too isn't it? Fuck."

He sniffs his fingers and groans, yep, the horrific smell of corpses has managed to stick to his hair (and his skin) even after boiling himself in the shower. He needs baking soda, or lemon juice, or that hippie peppermint soap people use when they don't want to smell like weed.

"I've only been here a few days, I don't know where anything is." Also he's been casing the place because he doesn't have any money and even though he's been told he can take things, all his training as a cop is working real hard to make him paranoid about it. So he's hoping to get in and get out with no one seeing him, especially the store owner. He hasn't seen anyone in there, and it looks abandoned. But can't be too sure.

[circumitus]

That explains a lot already, and Rey just suppresses the urge to groan. She is not the best at being a welcome committee; the Speakeasy nights are about the pinnacle for how involved she tries to make herself with the newcomers, which is more than enough for her.

"If you're looking for soap -- because you seriously fucking should -- it's down that aisle." She points at a nearby row of toiletries and other cleaning supplies. "Enzymatic cleaners are down the end as well. You'll need something like that to break down any organic materials stuck to your clothes."

Rey has cleaned many clothes and taken many showers when she gets covered in blood and gore. More than one would find comfortable. Her knowledge very well might speak for itself to someone so on edge as this guy, but whatever. She doesn't want someone reeking like this to ever come to her Speakeasy if he can help himself.

[itsnotaonesie]

Visiting the stores has become Peter's favorite 'waste time while pretending that nothing is horrible' activity, sooo that's what he's doing. Just strolling into this store, but not making it more than a couple feet in before he's hit by basically the worst smell he's ever encountered in his life. He's never smelled a dead body before but man he's kind of afraid that a raccoon got in here and died in a corner or something. Part of him wants to just scoot on out of there and pretend like nothing happened, but he also doesn't want someone else to have to deal with a like, potential dead squirrel situation, so he just sucks it up and starts looking around for the source of the smell.

Well the good news is that it's not a dead animal. The slightly more disturbing news is that it seems to be coming from this other dude. Okay cool, mystery solved? Straight up asking a dude why he smells like butts and dead people would be kind of a huge dick move, and Peter ain't about being a dick to people. So he's going to try a different approach.

"Uh, s-sir? Are you okay over there?"

Because you kind of smell like the subway and a butcher shop had a demon baby okay.

[theweakhavepurpose]

Luckily Pratt was using his hands to root through a shelf which means that Peter doesn't get a sledgehammer to the face, but he does freak out and jump back. He drops everything in his hands, which turn out to be a bunch of shirts, grabs the sledgehammer and brandishes it at the person who is clearly about to murder him.

And then he falters because this is a teenager who looks about as threatening as a kicked puppy. Lowering it again, he shakes his hair out of his eyes so he can assess this situation a little better. Yeah, this.. .is not a threat. He's just overreacting like usual. He holds his flat palm out towards Peter, looking at him with the intensity of someone who has seen far too much, "Don't do that."

Sneaking up on people? Being considerate? Talking? He's not clarifying, but whatever it is, don't do it.

"I'm fine. Fine! Why? Doesn't this all look fucking fine?" He kicks the shelf he was rooting through sending a bunch of dusty crap tumbling to the ground.

[itsnotaonesie]

As soon as he realizes that this dude is going for a weapon, Peter puts his hands up and steps back a bit. He's been hit in the face by harder things than a sledgehammer, but he really doesn't want to have to make up some bullshit reason about why his face wouldn't just be completely shattered like a normal kid's would.

Seems like the guy's managed to calm himself down, though. Well, sort of. Either way, this is way better than having to dodge a sledgehammer.

"Sorry, man. My bad."

He lowers his hands, still keeping his distance while hammer bro over here throws a little fit. This dude is really jumpy, it's probably best to just give him some space.

"Fine isn't really the word I'd use to describe anything I've seen since I got here, if I'm being honest." That one hundred percent includes people, especially this guy. You are so not-fine, bro.

[theweakhavepurpose]

Kicking over some shelves really doesn't make him feel any better, it's not even a good outlet for all his frustration. It just makes him feel worse because he's already paranoid about looting a store as it is. There's enough of the Deputy part of Deputy Pratt to still have all the laws drilled into him. He even knows exactly what code he's breaking (27-1-718 Civil Shoplifting) which is one of those weird things that he has no idea why he even remembers.

"No. You're right. Nothing about any of this is fine."

He puts the sledgehammer down, running his fingers through his hair and looking around the store. "This isn't your store is it?"

Jesus is he looting this kids parent's store? As if he doesn't feel enough like scum.

[itsnotaonesie]

"No, no, it's not mine. Nobody actually owns any of these stores, as far as I know. There's no like currency here either, from what I've been told, so this stuff is just here for us to use whenever we need it. It still feels weird just picking stuff up and walking out with it, but it is what it is, I guess."

Peter's a good boy, he doesn't want to steal stuff. He's been here like a week and this still all feels super unnatural. The one thing that does feel natural though is trying to help folks out, so hes just gonna try to do some of that if he can.

"Hey, if you need to change clothes, I can watch the door for you? Keep anyone else from accidentally sneaking up on you again."

Please change clothes man you smell like a zombie movie.

[laststartofall]

That smell - the one clinging to Pratt and following him everywhere he goes - is one that Jet is all too familiar with. It's a smell he's known since his teenage years. Blood, sweat, fear and death all rolled into one nose-burning bundle. The kind of smell that jolts forwards memories a decade old, things he's spent years trying to put to the back of his mind for the sake of something bigger, better, for the sake of a hope for the future that he now knows he'll never see.

He follows it because nothing smells like that without reason, and finds the source in a man very much alive and carrying a sledgehammer.

... Ah.

Jet, at first sight, is a fairly intimidating young man. He just about tops six feet in height with a broad build and an air of peculiar, calm certainty about him. There's a fresh mark over his right eye that looks like a brand, and some damage to the pupil and iris that covers the eye itself with a faintly milky sheen. He doesn't get too close, but taps his fingertips against the top of a clothing rail to draw the attention that his light steps may not have.

"Hey," he starts with, his voice far softer and lighter than his appearance would suggest. "You need any help?"

[theweakhavepurpose]

For as jittery as he is, he's also really good at sinking in on himself and being in his own little world, which is why he gets startled a dozen times a day. But at least he doesn't panic and go for his sledgehammer this time.

He stares at the newcomer, eyes that have seen far too much and will never quite recover fully. Like always, he's making snap decisions about if someone is a threat, are they stronger than him? Are they weak? He sincerely hopes he doesn't meet anyone weak, then he has to deal with the conflicting feelings of being a police officer and 'protect and serve' and being Jacob's underling and 'Cull the weak.' That is not something he is prepared to deal with right now. Or ever really, but he might be better after some time and distance away from the Herald and his conditioning.

This guy clearly does not go into the 'weak' category. In fact he could probably throw Pratt clear through a wall if he wanted to. Which is why the offer of help just generates confusion, "What? Why?"

[laststartofall]

That look isn't such a strange one either. He's seen just as surely as he's smelled that reek of death. It's the look of someone who's seen more than any one person should ever have to see. He doesn't move from where he is and his free hand - the one not resting on the clothing rail - stays away from the blaster holstered at his hip. No danger here, he figures.

"Few reasons," Jet replies genially, brushing his hair out of his face. Despite the damage visible there he's young, only around twenty-five. "Got the look on you of someone not sure what he's at." No offence, guy, but you don't seem to know what you're looking for.

"And you're dragging the smell of a war 'round with you. New here?"

[theweakhavepurpose]

"Yeah, last week."

He looks down at his hands. The smell of war. Boy was that an accurate way to put it. Though the war was more like a slaughter. Sure both sides were fighting and killing each other, but where he'd been recently had been taking people and determining their purpose. The strong were sent through the trials against their will to be turned into soldiers. The weak were culled. But not only killed and disposed of. Torn apart. Eaten. Left to die slowly as an example to others. Used to train the wolves. Any number of things.

The weak have their purpose.

"I hate it." The war. The smell. Everything. He shakes his head, coming back to the present and trying to not think about home. "I'm trying to find something not horrible to wear so I don't smell like human entrails anymore."

[laststartofall]

"Think there'd be something not right about you if you were enjoying it," Jet comments. He takes a few steps towards the man, letting his hand fall from the clothes rail and hooking the thumb through the belt loop of his jeans instead. There's no sane person alive who enjoys smelling like they've just been dragged through a battlefield.

His eyes shift to the clothing rails. It can be hard to find what you need here, and to find it in a size you need and a colour you don't find entirely offensive. Margaery has her sewing shop, but this guy's need looks (and smells) a bit too urgent for the wait.

"Some things aren't so bad, just have to look. Lady here's got a shop, makes clothes if you can trade her something." Sure, he'll recommend her, why not. "... Can help you look, if you want. Nothing happening right now."

[whistlewhilstyouwork]

Whistler is on his weekly grocery run, feeling carefully over different vegetables and lifting one after another nearer to his face for a smell test.

Except the smell test rapidly becomes pointless when a much more overpowering smell wafts in his direction, drowning out all the others. In catches in his throat like an old sock pulled from the garbage and shoved into his mouth. Covering his nose and mouth with one hand to try and do what he can to block it, he reaches out for his white cane with the other, beginning to tap it along the ground to try and locate the source, immediately suspicious of the sound of nearby footsteps which seem to be synchronized to the intensity of the smell.

The tip of his cane hits the side of Pratt's shoe]

"....Hey uh....this might seem like a weird question...but shot in the dark....did you fall in a sewer? Or did you just crawl out of a grave?"

[theweakhavepurpose]

At least he heard this guy coming so he doesn't immediately panic and send a sledgehammer at his face. He grimaces, pulling horrifically brightly colored shirt after horrifically brightly colored shirt off the shelf in front of him.

"The second one."

Then he looks back at him again, realizing that the guy can't see him, and might take that the wrong way considering where they are and what kind of fucked up stuff could happen here.

"More like a butchering facility than a grave. And believe me I know. I can smell it too. I'm working on it."

By leaving a deathly smell everywhere he goes. He better not commit any crimes or he will be so easy to track down.

[whistlewhilstyouwork]

"I'm hoping by 'butchering facility' you are implying that you work in the meat packing industry and..well...not something that belongs in a slasher flick."

But knowing Hadriel Whistler knows it is likely the latter.

[theweakhavepurpose]

"Definitely the slasher flick one." He pulls out something tropical and covered in parrots, considering it because it happens to be black and dark green and not eye-searingly pink like everything else.

"It would make a good movie. Very Hostel." Or a good video game.

This shirt will have to do because his other options are not great. He backs up a little bit so he can shuck his deputy uniform shirt off and pull this one on. His undershirt is a mess too, but not nearly as bad as the outer layer.

[whistlewhilstyouwork]

"Can't say I know that one, but I can take an educated guess that saws and hooks are involved."

He shuffles a bit in Pratt's direction, cane swinging in smooth motions over the ground.

"So then what about you? Do you look like something out of a slasher flick? Big? Small? You got a hook for a hand or anything?"

[tongueamok]

When Carlisle does leave the northern island, it's usually for a reason. Sometimes, he's looking for more jars, empty containers into which he can store plants, ink, and whatever other knickknacks he sees fit; other days, he's searching for pieces for his personal shrine, objects that may help build a better, physical expression for his goddess' favor. Occasionally, he peruses the shelves for nothing in particular, but the act of doing so relaxes him all the same.

But today, he's looking through clothes. Though fastidious about his own appearance, Carlisle's clothing is generally chosen favoring practicality over fashion. In the caves, he'd worn longer sleeves when not adorned in his vestments, deciding it best to cover as much skin as possible without making himself uncomfortable; in the heat of the two-sunned planet, he'd stuck with the clothing that covered him, but looked for fabrics that were lighter in weight, thanking his cold nature for allowing him to survive in such a horrid place.

With the wind from the choppy waves cascading along the islands and the sun often behind the clouds, Carlisle has mostly returned to his casual sweaters and slacks here, wearing his traditional tabard over them. If nothing else, the tabard covers the ridiculous pictures sometimes emblazoned on the front of said sweaters, saving him some embarrassment. With the sweater he is wearing today, he's not so luck, as a part of the design peeks out from the side of the garment.

But, if nothing else, at least his ridiculous sweater and religious garb are clean. The same cannot be said for what the other man in the store has on. The smell is oppressive, so much so that Carlisle fails to reel in his temper.

"The apartments do have contraptions with which you may wash your clothes, you know," he says, not even hiding his irritation, his nose wrinkling.

[theweakhavepurpose]

Pratt is jittery as all hell, but he doesn't panic when confronted with another person simply because he is frustrated beyond belief right now. Piles of clothes are littered around his feet as he pulls out day-glo shirts off the shelf and dumps them. He has no pride anymore, all beaten out of him by Jacob, but he is not going to be seen looking like a 1990's rollerblader.

"No shit. Why do you think I'm in here getting new clothes?" He realizes the two things are not mutually exclusive but he's not about to tell a stranger that he doesn't want to stand around naked while his clothes wash because he's a paranoid wreck.

He snorts, pulling a few more Hawaiian monstrosities out and actually considering them because that may be his best option right now. He's going to look fucking ridiculous.

Finally actually looking over at Carlisle he stops for a bit, wondering if maybe he won't look as stupid as he thought, "Did.. Did you just come from a Renaissance Faire?"

[tongueamok]

The first question gets an eyeroll out of the clergyman; the second makes him cast a glance over at the odorous stranger, his nose still wrinkled from the smell (though some of that might be utter confusion now).

"A what?"

[theweakhavepurpose]

"You're wearing a..." He pauses, he has no idea what those things are called. And he's never actually been to a Ren Faire, but he has had to chase LARPing teenagers out of the woods before they got eaten by wolverines and this was also similar.

"You know what, nevermind. I don't need to know." He tosses a shirt so vibrantly pink it almost burns into his retinas, and finally settles on something that is horrible but probably the least offensive thing he'll find here.

"And you wouldn't smell great either if you'd been in slaughterhouse for months."

[tongueamok]

Carlisle's eyes follow the shirt as Pratt tosses it, flicking to the new one he's chosen.

"I wouldn't, but given the rest of you seems relatively clean, it seems to be your clothing that is the main offense, hence my initial statement."

Needless to say, he's a real hit at parties.