Comments | bingo_faced: New Mexico / June, 1958 / 02:24

bingo_faced

New Mexico / June, 1958 / 02:24

Feb 16, 2010 19:20

Nighttime.

The desert cooled greatly at night, especially nights as clear as this one. Lieutenant (J.G.) Al "Bingo" Calavicci wouldn't know the difference. Half the bottles lay strewn in the dirt while the other half were placed precisely, a practical lineup on the white edge line of the road. Off the road, in the dirt, Al's candy apple red ( Read more... )

*crack, ^karathrace

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anekanta February 17 2010, 02:44:07 UTC

Kara felt almost unbearably light, joyous even. She'd just given over at last, putting a sudden end to all of her struggles. She closed her eyes, told Lee not to follow, and let go just like that ( ... )

anekanta February 21 2010, 16:05:41 UTC

Kara rolled her eyes. "Of course I'm not from around here." She folded her arms and gave him a pointed look. "Are you from around here?"

Where she'd been trying to look vaguely friendly and even somewhat flirtatious, she now allowed her expression to close off entirely. With a disparaging glare, Kara added, "And if I were you, I wouldn't be so eager to show up anywhere 'official' with a wounded officer in your condition." And maybe that was something of a threat - one she really could not follow through on - but Calavicci had forced her hand.

She turned and gestured to her plane. "And if you don't believe me, go have a look. You'll find she's not exactly standard-issue." At least, she was banking on her Viper looking strange enough compared to whatever the man flew to be believable.

bingo_faced February 21 2010, 21:28:22 UTC

So she would play ball. Al smirked and crossed his arms, lifting his chin in her direction. "Changes are, if you really are telling the truth -- and I don't believe you are, not yet -- then all I need to do is wait here with you and someone's gonna be along." He offered his thought with a trace of cockiness as he crossed his arms in front of him. "Because, ma'am, the United States government is not the type of organization to allow one of their experimental airplanes or the pilot in the hotseat to go unchecked." As if to illustrate his point, Bingo turned and looked for signs of life other than theirs in the vast quiet of the desert ( ... )

anekanta February 22 2010, 01:16:38 UTC

So now he was trying to call her out? After the night she'd had, she really didn't need to go round and round with some idiot in the godsdamned desert. She waved him off flippantly, placing her empty bottle with its tumbled brethren.

"Right, well, can't take that chance, can you?" She nodded toward his car. "Why don't you scamper off toward wherever it is you're really going. I'll wait here for my ride on my own." She folded her arms against the chill and the pain in her arm and turned away from him and back into the dessert. Kara figured she'd make a show of investigating the wreckage before returning to road, because apparently, she had a long walk ahead of her.

bingo_faced February 22 2010, 01:48:19 UTC

If there was one thing in the whole of the world that could drive Al absolutely bonkers, it was a moody woman. Unfortunately, they were also one of his biggest weaknesses. Feeling a complete and utter jerk, the young pilot pressed his palm to his forehead, the glowing ember of the cigarette dangerously close to his semi-unruly mop. "Ah, I'm sorry," he informed Thrace, and it was certainly genuine enough. "Look, I'll, uh... I'll take you wherever you need to go, all right?" Bingo's hand dropped and he gestured around them as if she might choose their direction right then and there. "Or-- or I'll send someone back to get you. Whatever you need," he offered. In retrospect, it hadn't been very human of him to question and accuse her when she'd obviously just been through quite an ordeal.

As if it excused his behavior (it didn't,) or was the truth (it wasn't,) Al finished, "It's the beer." He poured out the bottle he'd just recently opened.

anekanta February 22 2010, 02:10:28 UTC

Oh, great, he was following her - she'd never had walking away work for her before, and it was just her luck it'd be a success the first time when she didn't want it to.

She waved him off, barely affording him a glance over her shoulder. "I'll be fine. You might want to make yourself scarce, huh?" She doubted it'd do her any good, though, and at any rate, she really didn't want to be left alone in the desert.

bingo_faced February 22 2010, 07:31:46 UTC

"Nah, c'mon," he urged her. Bingo snuffed out his cigarette and the desert seemed all the darker for it. Overhead, wisps of clouds remained as a trace, telling of the moodiness of New Mexico during even the warmer months. "We don't even hafta go anywhere. Just come and sit down. You've probably gotten pretty tossed around on your way down and now you're trekking through the scrub brush and dust because I couldn't keep my mug shut." Geez, just beg her to come around, why don't you, Bingo? he mentally chided.

What was it he wanted from her? Company? Al often didn't think company was worth so much trouble, but times had gotten tougher since he'd been reassigned. He was the same cocky Bingo, but he shared space with a whole mess of people just as cocky as he was. Oh, Al, if only your troubles were novel.

He stopped, not willing to go too far from the Corvette without knowing exactly where the outcome of his reasoning would lead them.

anekanta February 22 2010, 11:07:29 UTC

Kara felt rather than heard him stop behind her, and she mostly wanted to keep going. She figured she could track a bit further on down the road through the 'scrub brush and dust' and be all the better for it. Still, there was part of her that was loathe to be all on her own.

The fact was, she had been pretty shaken up - even before her unceremonious landing on some place she'd never heard of, she'd had something of a shock. In fact, she wasn't even sure if she was really even alive or not - for all she knew, this was some version of Hell, and Calavicci another menacing avatar trying to manipulate her (though he was neither very menacing nor manipulative).

Either way, at least he was there and she wasn't wandering through the desert by herself. She was exhausted, and though she'd never want to admit it, she was afraid of passing out and falling prey to whatever denizens of the New Mexico night that might fall upon her ( ... )

bingo_faced February 23 2010, 01:30:10 UTC

"No questions," he agreed, nodding his head distractedly. Oh, Bingo, what are you getting yourself into? The young man let out a quiet sigh of relief, hoping it would help to even out his nerves over the duration of their company. He didn't want to even think about how he might have felt if he'd really left her out there alone -- it likely would have haunted him back to find her before he could get out of the state.

Feeling safer the nearer they were to the car, Calavicci pushed through the dark toward his beloved car, intent on the thought that it provided a buffer between him and his new companion. Something of a breathing, burning memorial, the bright cherry speedster provided a kind of sick company (and the alcohol another.) Al didn't care. He needed her, that car ( ... )

anekanta February 23 2010, 01:40:48 UTC

A large portion of Kara's life had been devoted to just the opposite of what Calavicci was offering - she hated asking for help. Sometimes, though, life was about overcoming what scared you - but just as often, it was about stubbornly ignoring those fears. Kara hadn't quite decided which side of that fine line she wanted to walk, so she just turned and took a step back toward the road.

"I think I need to sit," she said at last, forcing a bit of steel into her shaky voice. Her knee was throbbing after her little stroll back - further evidence she'd do better not to keep getting on the man's bad side. She needed help right now.

Hobbling (and hating herself for it), she made for the car, biting back a groan of agony. "Bring me another bottle," she gritted out - it might be worse for her in the long-run to get hammered, she figured she'd earned it.

bingo_faced February 23 2010, 01:58:52 UTC

Al opened the passenger door for Kara and then went around the the trunk to gather up some supplies. He had a spare sweater which would serve a dual purpose, both as a transport for the remaining beer, but also as a way for Thrace to chase away the inevitable and lasting chill of the New Mexican desert.

"You want this?" He asked as he dumped the bottles in on the driver's seat. Realizing his mistake, he corrected, "You want this." Hey, she never said he wasn't allowed to be a bit of a smartass. The Captain acted like the type to take it and not be too offended, anyway. "And this," he finished, offering a beer with one hand and the sweater with the other.

anekanta February 23 2010, 02:16:21 UTC

Kara rolled her eyes though she was glad he was playing along. She was even happier to have a seat, and she eased herself into the passenger-side, careful of her knee. Accepting both the beer and the sweater, she arranged herself until she was warmer and taking a satisfying pull from the longneck. Kara'd have liked another smoke, but she knew she could wait - after all, she'd gone without for a long time as it was.

Surveying the unfamiliar stars through the windscreen leant her some perspective - she was really, really lost. She had no idea if there was even a morning forthcoming; for all she knew, it'd be nighttime in the desert for another six hours or another six months ( ... )

bingo_faced February 23 2010, 06:07:44 UTC

"I'm... in between places," he replied readily, though he obviously wasn't certain. Al moved the bottles to make room for himself and then sat in the driver's seat, half in and half out. With his leg on the pavement, Bingo relaxed back in the bucket seat and settled for who knew how long. If he told her the truth, he probably would have said he didn't have a home, but since she was expecting answers, he filled them in. "Suppose the nearest I've got is 'Earth,' and that might not be for much longer," he joked, dry and lacking true mirth ( ... )

anekanta February 23 2010, 20:41:35 UTC

Earth? This couldn't have gone better if she'd actually just begun to interrogate him. Part of her was afraid to believe it could be true, and the rest was beginning to think she was just hallucinating. Either way, the combination of 'Earth,' 'casino,' and 'coast' was building quite a paradise in her mind, so she was happy to stay awhile ( ... )

bingo_faced February 24 2010, 02:35:40 UTC

Al's face lit as she confirmed his suspicions about her origin. He tried his hardest not to immediately imagine her in a bikini, skating away with his attention along the boardwalk of his mind. Feeling the (ever present) need for a cigarette, the man leaned toward the road so he could fish the half-empty soft pack from his side pocket. "A whole lotta nothin'," which was probably why it appealed to him so strongly. That's very emo of you, Al ( ... )

anekanta February 24 2010, 02:54:25 UTC

Kara took the cigarette, trying not to look disappointed in the news that there wasn't a vibrant, bustling city just over the next (nonexistent) rise. She supposed she could use that in her favor, though - at least with Calavicci's unwitting help, perhaps she could build a passable cover on the way to... wherever. So far, 'missing pilot on a top-secret flight' wasn't so solid. She could be Kara Thrace of 'the West Coast' - whatever that was.

"You like to gamble?" she asked, willfully ignorant of the bent of his thoughts. She lit the cigarette and looked at him with the benefit of the light with genuine interest. So long as she could figure out the rules to some basic card game, perhaps she could also win a little scratch; cash would be a necessity soon enough as it was.

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