hitchin'

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hitchin'

Going my way? When you find yourself on some lonesome strip of road with no way to get where you’re going, you stick out your thumb and hope the kindness of strangers pays off. It's a hitchhiking meme. Find a lift or offer one.

top level

as a hitchhiker or a driver. or both.

Hitchers tell your potential driver where you’re heading and see if they're willing to make some room.
Drivers pull over and lay down some ground rules for riding with you.

comment

on the hitchers you’ll stop for or the drivers you’ll hop in with.

Comments

[akanotjewel]

[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?

[borrowyourcoat]

[ 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.]

[akanotjewel]

[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?

[borrowyourcoat]

[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.]

[akanotjewel]

[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.

[borrowyourcoat]

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.]