toplvl | hitchin'

[ Paraguay to Ohio is a long journey and the way he drags his feet looks like he's not expecting anyone to pull over anytime soon. ]

[A teenaged girl in a too-big coat is working the tables at a truck stop diner, looking for anyone with an empty seat and not too many questions.

Or maybe she's on the median in a green silk dress on a cold night looking both out of place and time.]

[Jessica doesn’t usually leave New York for her cases. Until today, the furthest she went for a case was Ridgefield Park, and that had been a total shitshow from the start. This one is shaping up to be yet another: a missing persons case, a young woman named Amanda Steiner who’d packed her shit after a fight with her family and fled three states away. The family had then contacted Jessica and tearfully asked her to help them. They also offered a shitload of money, for any information she could dig up on their kid’s whereabouts. And if she could get them in touch with each other again, so much the better.

Honestly, she’s just glad she’s not being asked to haul the woman back home. Doesn’t sound like she wants to go back—what Jessica had dug up on her, and had gotten from the possessions she’d left behind in her room at her family’s place, had given her the impression that this was a woman who was looking into becoming, uh, something called a routewitch? Whatever. Jessica’s hoping that Amanda’s at least receptive to her parents knowing where she is. Would be nice to get to pay her rent.

The legend of the Phantom Prom Date is somewhere in the research Jessica’s done into Amanda’s interests. A girl in a green silk dress never makes it to prom, blah blah blah, she’s heard that tale before. She and Trish used to swap scary ghost stories when they were kids, but Jessica doesn’t really believe in them anymore, so she’s not really expecting to see a girl in a green silk dress on the median one night, on a highway leading to Pennsylvania.

She frowns. Slows the car, rolls the window down, eyes the girl up and down. She shouldn’t. She really shouldn’t. Who the fuck knows what this girl might have up her sleeve.]

The hell are you doing, hitchhiking on a night like this? [She sounds kinda irritated and surly. But she stopped, and she has a jacket, and this girl’s probably gonna get goddamn cold out here in a dress like that.]

[Rose isn't in the best mood herself. She at least tries not to look like the unliving urban legend she is when she's on the shoulder of the road, but right now, it's being The Road and every attempt to will her deathday dress into something less Midwest Cinderella. The last thing she needs is yet another armature ghost hunter putting another pin on the goddamn Google Map her nephew showed her that at least one paranormal research group was using.

The dress usually means something, but fuck if she knows what the Road's asking of her tonight. There aren't any scents on the winds of the Twilight telling her what to expect, just the dark, and the cold, and then the familiar bright light of a slowing vehicle.

She's surprised to hear a woman's voice, especially a younger one; but even with the irritation in the woman's tone, she visibly relaxes a little- or goes through the motions of doing so, as any poor lost young woman would. She's played this part long enough.]

I had a fight with my boyfriend, [she says it sheepishly, like it's her fault some asshole would leave her out here and she's embarrassed to be troubling some poor driver by her very presence. It's the story Antimony says would piss her off the most at an imaginary stranger, and for some reason, following Antimony Protocol just seems like a good idea here.]

He had a bit too much at the open bar, and I didn't think he should be driving and- [she shrugs and motions to her situation while hesitantly inching towards the offered coat like a hungry stray cat coaxed towards an open tuna can.] He didn't bother leaving me my phone.

[She's always found that creating a villain for a situation diffuses the interrogation portion of hitching a ride. And a throwaway about an open bar hints at something fit to be dressed the way she is- or she hopes it covers that question.]

[Oh, goddammit. Jessica’s about to ask if she can’t just call her parents, before the girl drops that on her.]

Let me guess: this boyfriend left no money for a payphone either, huh? [She sighs. This boyfriend sounds like a grade-A asshole and this girl should drop him like a hot potato. But Jessica doesn’t say that, because that would mean she’s invested. And she’s not. Honestly, she should just get going already—maybe someone else can pick this girl up.

Someone else who’ll probably do far worse to a hitchhiker in a gown with no money or phone than judge the kid’s life choices, as Jessica’s doing.

God fucking dammit.

Jessica grits her teeth, then leans over to open the passenger door, grabbing her camera bag from the passenger seat and settling it on her lap.]

Get in. [It’s brusque and gruff. She’s going somewhere, and from the looks of it, looking for someone too: besides the camera bag, there’s a bag full of files resting on the floor of the passenger seat, and a notebook and pen stashed in the middle compartment. An overnight bag takes up the backseat.] I’m headed to Pennsylvania. Where do you want me to drop you off?

[Another shrug and pat down of the silk dress- which is either high-end vintage reproduction or a really well-preserved piece of the real deal. Despite appearing to be the sort of girl who can spend that kind of money on a dress, there's no "spoiled rich girl" reaction to the inside of Jess's car. She settles in to the heat of the borrowed jacket and the comfortingly familiar unfamiliarity of an empty bucket seat with a touch too much ease for a lost kid, but maybe she's just happy to be warm.

The rock radio deciding now is the time to que up Smells Like Teen Spirit has, she's mostly sure, nothing to do with her. Probably. Maybe. Hopefully.]

You going through Ohio at all? My stepbrother's in Columbus- he always said I could come stay with him if things got bad enough.

[Stepbrother. Nephew. Either way, a "responsible adult" willing to play along with her cover story if her Good Samaritan of the night is the kind to follow up on it.] If you drop me off somewhere near there, I can find my way to his place.

[And, because she's always known questions and the oppurtunity for people to talk about themselves to be a great distraction from the cracks in between what she's presenting and the actual truth:]

So you're heading out there for work? You a writer? [Again, hitchhiking ghost tip: always ask someone if they're a writer, even without any proof. Someone talking about their epic fantasy novel in progress means less questions directed towards her.]

[Jessica takes off her leather jacket and hands it over, watches her with some interest, noting that the dress is pretty vintage—either this girl's family has some money to her name, or she scrimped and saved to impress her boyfriend. Honestly, Jessica would put money on the latter—people have done worse shit in the name of impressing someone else.

Looks like an experienced hitchhiker, too. Might be this isn't the first time a guy's screwed her over.]

I can drop you off in Erie, but you'll have to make your own way to Columbus. Try the bus instead of hitching a ride. [Jessica drums her fingers on the wheel, pulling away from the shoulder, wishing she could drink. But she's driving and she has no desire to get pulled over for a DUI, so, here she is instead. Should've stayed in New York.]

I'm a private investigator, but yeah. I'm working. [And because her clients expect confidentiality, that's all Jessica means to say.] What's your name?

[ She doesn't say anything but nod in agreement to both being without money, and perfectly fine with Eerie. She knows a diner near the outskirts of the city run by an ambulamancer family. She and most of the Routewitches eat free there as a rule, and in this getup, she'll be known on site by half the people there- and a friendly driver is likely to get at least some free pie for her trouble.]

No shit? That's cool. I'm Rose. What's that like? [Because she refuses to believe a teenager of any generation wouldn't be impressed by that. 'Investigator' might not be her favorite word, but her run-ins with ones paid by the case have been few and far between. They're more a concern of the recently dead- and then, the concern goes on to the PI to figure out how to explain how they know someone's dead without a body.

She also bets this woman's good at it- bold and curious enough to stop for someone, disengaged enough she's not demanding to drop her off at home or a police station. Good enough she's very much not giving any last names if she can help it.]

[Jessica cuts a glance back at Rose, the name catching on something in her recent memory. A girl in a green silk gown named Rose, huh?

Could be a coincidence. But Jessica files it away for later. For now, she lets it pass, keeping her eyes on the road, still a little wary of any oncoming cars. Her usual ride is—out of commission, and has been for a while, so Jessica’s finally picked up driving. She’s more cautious about it than she is with most other things, a surprise for damn near everyone who knows her.

She drums her fingers against the steering wheel.]

Rose, huh? I’m Jessica. [Jones does not come out.] And in a word? Shitty. Boring. [A breath.] It’s mostly just taking pictures of cheating assholes with their pants down and serving court summons. Not all that exciting, but it pays the bills.

[And it keeps the booze flowing.]

You’ve hitched rides before, I’m guessing?

[She shrugs at the question. She isn't going to try to lie about that.] It's happened a few times, yeah. He always swears it's never further than I should be able to walk, [she pauses to lift up the hem of her dress to mid-shin, revealing the surprisingly clean dress flats.] I'm not in heels this time, at least. But it's never been without anything before. Money, a phone, something. I've been lucky, and I'm getting tired of pressing it.

Any tips for dealing with long stretches of boredom, seeing as I'm about to waste my youth away in a mid-sized midwestern city under somewhat capable adult supervision? I take it you get to be good at that if you haven't found something else to pay the bills. [It's likely Rose has, at some point, heard some talk radio call-in about Jessica, but the voices on the radio have never been the ones that stayed with her.

She listens more to the cars than their radios. This one appreciates the caution its driver has for the road.
This one is new in its awareness. So far it's spark compared to the bonfire of a long-haul trucker's rig. People with a lot of distance, Rose has found, or those with some other connection to the Road, their vehicles pick the light that streaks through the Twilight a little faster. This is a car that knows it's doing something. It doesn't know what, but it wants to do good by the one turning its wheel.

Rose has to turn her head to the window to keep her face hidden when she taps the dashboard, afraid the affection in the act might crack through her mask. You're doing good. The road ahead seems clear, I'm not here for her. Or if I am, it's to help her, not show her the Exit. This is Official Road Business. They like to put me in uniform.

Not that the car can understand the words she's thinking at it, but it gets the intent. Mostly. Kind of. The spark flickers a little brighter. Traffic runs a little smoother, and so does the engine.]

[Jessica does not say dump him, Jesus Christ, but it's obvious in the disapproving, almost pitying way she glances over at Rose. Just forget him and walk away, she doesn't say, because Jessica of all people should know just how hard that can be.]

Sounds like an asshole. [Dump him.] Listen, if you need a change of clothes, [she nods to the overnight bag in the backseat,] just—pick what you want, I guess. [Most of it is old, shapeless stuff anyway, the kind you get cheaply at a Wal-Mart. Save for the leather jacket that Rose is wearing, which is four hundred dollars.]

God, I don't know. Don't do drugs, don't drink and drive, get a damn job—there's a reason no one asks me for advice. [Because she is such a disaster zone that no one with sense asks Jessica for anything resembling advice. Case in point: her phone, stuck in the center console and running low on battery as always, flashes with an incoming call from Mrs. Steiner's number, labeled "Client - Steiner case". Jessica only gives it the briefest of glances before ignoring it.]

Just... [She hesitates for a moment. Then she sighs.] Look out for whatever family you've got left. [She thinks of Trish, then. Trish in the Raft, and her parents and her brother, dead and gone. If there's one thing Jessica is good at, it's losing.

Her fingers twitch on the wheel. What she wouldn't give for a sip from her flask, for the sweet burn of whiskey going down her throat.] That's all I've got.

Yeah. [She agrees with the assessment of her fictional boyfriend, and a weariness she directs instead at some of the Road's nastier assignments. The killer truckers who think she's another piece of easy prey, the ghost hunters snuffing benevolent road ghosts out of existence for one misguided reason or another, and the things that lead to her being dead in the first place.

She listens to the advice as she swaps out the jacket for a sweatshirt- something that would've been tricky when she'd first started.]

It's better than I've gotten from some teachers. [Again, the truth. There had been the ones who'd cared, but most were like any other adult in Buckley, writing her off as lost before she'd had a chance to find her way.] And as far as things strangers in cars could tell me to do, probably the best so far. You're a lot nicer than a lot of people would be to someone like me- [Mark it down for a holiday Jess, she really means it too. ] I won't take any more of your clothes, but I hear there's a really great diner up ahead, how 'bout a burger? [She can't see the neon lights on the horizon, but she can practically hear them buzzing, and if the Road didn't want them to stop, she wouldn't be this hungry.]

[He looks tired, a bit worn out like he's been traveling rough for some time now, and....is that blood on his shirt? Apologies if you stopped to pick him up anyway.]

[A woman just trying to get the hell outta Detroit, man.]

[A teenage girl making her way down the road, trying to either get out of or back into Oregon.]

[And now, here's short dark and fluffy guy of asian descent in a trenchcoat and hoodie, even if it's hot out. If you have any form of magical detection, you're gonna feel him real strong when you pull up. In a lot of places, he's a fairly well known figure. Maybe you know him from TV, maybe he's saved you at some point. It's just kind of what he does as a magic-based superhero. Who doesn't drive and can't fly.]

hitchin'

hitchin'

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HITCHERS

Larry Trainor / Negative Man | Doom Patrol

Rose Marshall | Ghost Roads | OTA

voice testing! pls be gentle

we haven't started and I already love this muse combo so we're golden

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Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto | X-men

Kara | Detroit: Become Human

Wendy Corduroy | Gravity Falls

Spooky Jones | The Young Protectors | OTA