I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in...

[isntalwaysevil]

There's a man standing in the middle of Grant Park, holding an open cell phone like a few moments before, he might have been using it for a makeshift light. Or maybe like he was going to beat someone with it. As most people don't use cell phones like that, it's probably hard to tell.

A few minutes ago, Edward Albright was standing in the (currently

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[pressthatbutton]

Katja is chainsmoking by Buckingham fountain. Don't ask why she has to come to the park to chainsmoke. She doesn't. She just felt like it. Besides, it's warm, and this is a fountain, and don't you go hang out by fountains when it's warm? Maybe if more people had done that in England whenever that horrible heat wave came through -- last year? year before? more? -- they wouldn't have died so much. Of course, hanging out in fountains is not the greatest when, say, there's an outbreak of typhoid or some other virulent strain of illness. But she usually knows when that happens.

She might have also been playing in the fountain a bit earlier. So she is chainsmoking, and also wet. And there's a crazy mans talking to himself over there, sounding unhappy about being in Chicago. As if he was just somewhere else. Oho!

"Yo, crazy man!" she calls over. "Want a cigarette while I explain this to you, or would you like to continue talking to your little cellphone friend by yourself?"

[isntalwaysevil]

Edward freezes mid-invective regarding Henry and his nonexistant parentage and turns around, his expression defaulting to a casual simper, like he totally meant to be talking to himself just now. Oh yeah, he's cool.

The woman's got a Russian accent, but unless the KGB got a little more colorful since the last time he checked, he wouldn't peg her for one of them. Plus, she's attractive.

From the back of his head, he can hear Henry grumbling. That's going to get old really fast.

"You know, when people know what just happened to me before I do, I get a little suspicious." But he's all swaggering confidence anyway as he strolls over to her. "The cigarette's probably going to be necessary."

[pressthatbutton]

Katja fishes a second cigarette out of her pack, lighting it on hers because she's not sure where she put her lighter and she's a little concerned she might have dropped it in the fountain. That would be the fourth damn lighter she's lost or broken this week. Granted, she broke one of them on purpose. What? She needed the little flicky thing in it. For science!

"Here," she says, holding the cigarette out to him, then taking a deep drag on hers when he takes it. Mmm, delicious burning. Delicious burning that tastes like dirt. Someday she'll quit smoking. Yeah, like when hell freezes over.

"Most of us natives know a wanderer when we see one by now, котенок, and it has nothing to do with any evil conspiracies, so you don't have to trouble your pretty head about that," she continues. "You just got yourself on the universe's shit list and have wound up in the most exciting place in the universe: Chicago, Illinois. I know, it's thrilling. Here's the catcher: you can't go back." She rattles all this off in one amazing

[isntalwaysevil]

Edward takes the cigarette with a little tilt of his head that looks almost like a sardonic bow and proceeds to take a drag on his. Yeah, after the day he's just woken up to, he really, really needs this.

"What makes you think I'm a conspiracy theorist, поломанная вишня?" He smirks, blowing smoke above his head. "Maybe I'm just paranoid." One does not preclude the other, and Edward's just being a little bitch.

And while he doesn't react to her little spiel, in the back of his head, Henry sputters.

"She's lying, right? She has to be lying. There is no way we're stuck here."

"You're yanking my chain, aren't you?" Edward says, although his tone suggests he really doesn't think she is in the slightest. He's just saying it to shut Henry the fuck up. He does sit down, however, still appreciating his cigarette.

Yeah, most of Edward's emotions are in his other personality. He's just considering the merits of not being anywhere near JANUS right now.

[teenytinyteme]

Chance has a rule. You don't ask crazy people for money. Not the ones that talk to themselves. It's just... a good thing to do. Because mostly the crazy ones are as broke as she is, and if they're crazy, she doesn't want to provoke them and get attacked.

This guy, though? Doesn't look as poor as any of the other crazies she's seen on the streets. So maybe he's just having a... well. Sometimes sane people talk to themselves. It happens, right? And she really needs the cash. She's hungry!

"Excuse me, sir?" she asks rapidly, in case he is crazy. "I don't mean to disturb your, uh, talking to yourself or thinking out loud or whatever, but I was wondering if you could spare a quarter or two? I need, um... bus money." Yeah. That.

[isntalwaysevil]

Edward is currently digging the heel of his palm into his forehead, wishing for a gun, as Henry goes on and on about how this is like those dreams he used to have just before they got broken... And then suddenly, it just stopped, like Henry was never all up in his brain.

And that's about when his attention is drawn to the kid. He stares at her for a moment, because he barely knows how to handle Henry's kids, much less strange kids in strange places when his head is even more broken than usual and JANUS is somewhere imploding.

He sighs the sigh of a man who is long-suffering and fishes out his wallet. "Anyone ever tell you that begging is undignified, kid?"

[teenytinyteme]

Chance shrugs, because hell if she's going to argue with him while he has the wallet in his hand! Besides, he's one of the crazy ones. You don't argue with the crazy ones. "I never really had too much dignity to begin with," she admits quietly. Her hands are behind her back, fingers intertwined while she rocks up to her toes and back again. "So it's not like it's a real loss anyway."

[isntalwaysevil]

He pulls out a couple bucks (yeah, like hell if he's giving the brat more than that- he's not Henry, who is still suspiciously quiet) and shoves the wallet back into his pocket. "Word to the wise, dignity's not overrated. It's the difference between the men and the dogs."

He waves the dollars just out of reach, considering her height. "Now if you give you this, you have to do something for me."

He's teaching her a valuable lesson in hard-earned pay! ...That and he's a dick who doesn't believe in anyone getting something for nothing. He never did.