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Who: Misato Katsuragi and Anthony Janvier
Where: The interior of Misato's car, to start with.
When: April 15th.
What: Misato delivers a zombie from literal stir-craziness. Let us give her a hand! 8|b

Anthony has no clue whether this was due to a moment of weakness (he snapped out of it, after all - he could've been fine waiting it out; he didn't have to go crawling to someone; someone who, however kind she was the one time they did talk and she did leave an offer on the table, he barely knows, no less) or a moment of steeling up.

At the time, the choices seemed to be internal or external terror - either stay inside to get lost in absolutely nowhere again or get out to know exactly where he is, by whatever reminders.

Making the figurative scramble back through network archives until he found recording of her first message (with her name, that's right, Misato) and their conversation containing an offer it seemed worth an attempt asking on the current availability of did do a number to haul him back into the here-and-now proper, and so did wrapping his head around actually verbally asking.

His nerves are still ringing, though. He is definitely in unfamiliar surroundings, now, even if detectable as minorly enough as through the fact that he was sitting in an unfamiliar seat, with a slightly different quality of air shut into the space. Lack of sight keeps it from occurring to him to keep out of view of the windows - but he knows well enough to be able to turn to the driver's seat.

Cringing tight, half with the afterthought of hiding and half with an apology for making any manner of mess of things.

Halts out "Uhmm -- where are we going...?"

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Misato couldn't believe it when Anthony contacted her out of the blue. It seemed like he didn't have the slightest interest in leaving the house, and with his appearance, she couldn't really blame him. She had a hard enough time just leaving her apartment without makeup.

She wasn't about to shirk on her offer; as soon as the teen asked her to drag him out of the house, she immediately started planning. And before she knew it, the appointed day was here, and Anthony was sitting in her sports car alongside her.

"Six Flags, of course," she says, as if it's the most natural thing in the world. "They're open this week for spring break, so I thought we'd get out of the city for awhile and do something different!"

Besides, she hadn't left the city limits since, well, since before all this happened, and she was curious to see if what everyone said about leaving the city was true.

Plus, she was curious to see what Anthony looked like normally.

"That okay? I figured teen boys like stuff like that. I might not look it, but I love roller coasters. I'm crazy about that rush of adrenaline you get when you make that big first drop."

Six Flags. There's a Six Flags in Locke? He's not even been to a Six Flags since possibly before they just went by "Six Flags". Wouldn't he just slow down navigation of an amusement park in his state? For that matter wouldn't he just plain attract terrible amounts of unwanted attention at an amusement park in his state? Oh, God, this is going to be harrowing in its own right -

And then all of the initial declaration of the place catches up with him.

A flash chill, and a voice that practically floats up to squeaking "We're going out of the city?"

He has no idea how true it is or what the extent of it's going to be, himself, either way it runs the risk of creating a huge mess, and if it does, who are they going to contact? Not the network, seeing as they are, indeed, going to be out of bounds!

"Yeah, that's okay, right?" Misato asks, glancing away from the road just long enough to try and catch a glimpse of his expression. "Don't you think it'll be nice to take a break from everything for a change?"

Misato turns on her blinker and merges onto the on-ramp for the freeway.

"Besides, you'll change back too, won't you?"

They're on their way, all right. On their way to who knows exactly how this is going to happen.

"Uh, I don't -- I don't - I don't actually know, I haven't ever done it before."

Change back, he has, but not by this particular method.

"I haven't left the city since I learned my numbers."

"Well, it's not like the two of us could stay in Locke City forever. Besides, it's only for a few hours. I'm sure Locke will survive without us for that long, anyway."

Somehow, Misato felt a little bit better about this whole leaving-the-city thing now that she was going with someone else. Even if that someone else was Anthony.

"Don't teen boys like this sort of thing?" she asks. "I thought you'd be more excited!" Okay, so maybe she's not being entirely honest about that last part. But she was kind of hoping he'd be a little excited for once, like a normal teenager.

But that's just not Anthony's thing, she supposes.

"Hey, do you mind if I ask a personal question?"

He tries to laugh politely at that first bit. There's little enough to it that it sounds rather more like a sigh.

He lets the next part slide.

And to the next he jerks his head in her direction. Stumbles out, "What...?

"I mean uh - please. Uh - go a - go ahead."

She doesn't actually strictly need his permission.

"...I-I-I don't mind."

Trying to keep a little knot of abashment down after that bout of fumbling.

Misato's usually cheery tone goes a little more quiet.

"Your parents... how did they take all of this?"

Were they even in the picture?

He goes blank.

Coherency picks up and starts wrapping around...

"I - I haven't seen them, since -- July, it wasn't - " On-the-spot head-shake. " - that bad. Then...

"I went into hiding."

Which he has likely already told her once, but it seems appropriate to reassert, somehow.

"Sorry if it's too personal or anything, it's just... I haven't told my folks yet."

Misato shifts lanes and speeds past a slow-moving Hyundai. She's been driving ten over since she merged onto the freeway. She's a bit of a speed demon.

"I don't want them to find out some other way. Y'know, like if my hair spontaneously changes some weird color while I'm having brunch at their place or something."

She's honestly imagined worse happening.

"Did your parents ever find out you were a Numbered? Before you went into hiding, I mean."

He mildly pipes an "It's not", and by now he's accustomed to sensing the pace at which they're implicitly heading toward the border with creeping lack of ease.

Gives himself another mental knock into the line of conversation, shakes his head again. "No -- I was - worried, they'd. Tell -- someone. And uh - attract - "

The words "unwanted attention" are failing to reach articulation.

Coughs. "Get thems - get themselves in trouble. After Paul Ben's family was murdered - ...

"My - my best friend - told... his family, though, they've - " Coughs again. "Known about him since fall."

Lest that be encouragement or relief of any kind toward why Misato claims she's asking.

"Oh." Not exactly the encouragement that Misato was looking for, but it kind of puts things in perspective. Sure, she had to worry about her parents finding out if she suddenly grew a second head or something, but there was also their safety she had to worry about.

And their reaction. She was their only child, after all.

As they approach the border of Locke City, Misato finds herself itching towards another topic. "So, why the big change of heart? Seemed to me you weren't interested in getting out of the house at all."

And "Oh" can mean any number of things from "That's simple" to "That'll have to do".

He keeps a question down with a twitch. Better not pry. Better not wear it out before they've even technically gotten where they're going. "Oh" isn't a prompting; if there's anything else he's got to say or that he's got to know it'll be put out there.

His head jerks left toward her when she speaks up again, dropped a little at the side, and she elaborates.

Caught under a figurative spotlight.

"I -- ..." Starts off thick, goes congealed, and then wheezes off.

A couple seconds of pause. Coughs.

"I - I - " Here, this technically isn't a lie - " - had a pulse, umm." Drops muttering. "Suddenly. And uh - I..." Coughs again, shakes his head. "Didn't uh - have! ...Want to have to be -- alone with it, uhmm, I - suppose. I -- apologize, ma'am, it was umm. Sudden - ..."

Misato has to take her eyes off the road for this one, if only because she wants to get a better sense of what Anthony's feeling.

Not that his face really ever gives much away. It's not as expressive as it would be if it wasn't, well --

The way it was.

Misato's eyes quickly flicker back to the road.

"Do you wanna talk about it?" A beat. "You don't have to if you don't want to," she quickly adds.

"I - no - !" Which is exactly the wrong answer for its own intent with the vagueness of what exactly it was responding to. "I don't -- "

Not much better. He's turning his... eye sockets on where he's estimating Misato's face to be, should that count for anything - he is actually not trying to evade. Shoulders are tense. Look, there, he's locking himself in place, not that he could've gone there anyway, and it's not putting on her - it's a gesture of trust and-or appreciation...

"I-I 'see things'. Sometimes -- and I..." Swallows. Another cough, and a drop of his head at a diagonal just to make some small move - a little awkward in-body-language-only evasion there. " -- Something different happened and I just thought - it would be a good idea, to... get outside. I'm - I'm sorry if I shouldn't - be talking about this."

"Why are you so nervous all the time?" Misato asks, her eyes narrowing on the car in front of her. It's moving much too slowly for her tastes, and there's no way she can merge over -- not when the Nissan next to her was neck-and-neck with her little sports car.

"As much as I talk, don't you think I'd let you know if I had a problem with something you were saying?"

She slows down enough to let the Nissan pass and moves over to the next lane. And then the other. Then she immediately presses down on the gas pedal.

"I think you're a pretty cute kid. I wouldn't have invited you out if I didn't like you." This wasn't an offer she'd extend to someone like Marina, for example. "But I really think you need to have more confidence. Say what you mean and worry about the consequences later. Sometimes, it's just good to get what you're thinking off your chest. And if someone else gets upset, well--" Misato shrugs. "--oh well."

They're quickly approaching the city limits -- only about five more miles left to go. A part of Misato is anxious to see how things change -- if they actually change. All she really has to go by is hearsay from the network. And if there's anything she learned after her first post to the network, it was that not everything that was said there could be trusted.

He takes that first question as a tell-off. Flinches as post-shutting-up apology.

He could retort to the second one. Keeps it zipped.

He braces himself as the car changes speed, never mind that it's without enough transition for them to be in position to stop or cross over. They speed back up, the tension's released, and he listens to her talk.

He flinches again a bit on "cute", for a reason he can't quite focus on grabbing the nature of. Lets it slip along with an self-excusing "Uhmm" and a "It's -- it isn't that easy though -- can't let people get upset.

"It's -- " Shifts a little. "Not that I don't want to try -- not to - worry. So much, about it. 'Just worry more if I don't..."

The trail picked up into a lift - it's not something to trail off on; to him, that's where the thought settles.

Thus finishes it off with an "I'm sorry."

A catch-all "I'm sorry", more or less. Sorry that doesn't help, sorry for the time he's wasted talking about himself while she's already doing him a huge and unearned favor.

Coughs, and speaks up again to balance it, dry-voiced. "...Thank you, though. Um -- again..."

"Let them get upset! Let them get angry!" Misato's eyes are fixated on the road now, on the approaching "Welcome" sign for the next town over. "If people were happy all the time, what would be the point in living? A little conflict every now and then is good for the soul. It makes you a stronger person."

Misato looks at Anthony from the corner of her eye. "You know better than anyone that if you make someone upset, you can always apologize afterward. The people who matter won't mind. Personally, I think you should apologize a whole lot less. Nothing you've done so far has warranted any kind of apology."

It's at that moment that they pass the sign. "We're out of Locke City now," she says, and this time she takes her eyes off the road to look at him. No tremendous changes yet. "You feel any different?"

He can and more than half wants to retort to that. He holds put. Cringes a little as she goes on - nonverbal apology will need to do, then.

And then the subject changes.

As he gathers his head to answer, the question itself actually hits him - with a pang. Not a visceral one, a strictly mental one, he goes searching himself internally to feel if anything's starting to move again -

And he swallows, shakes his head erratically, croaks up a "Not yet..."

Misato doesn't, either. The fuzziness that others described -- it hasn't hit her yet. She wonders how what it's going to be like when and if it actually happens. Will she remember why she dragged Anthony out here in the first place? Will she recall what he looked like if he suddenly goes all prettyboy? Truthfully, it's kind of scary -- and a small part of her feels badly about dragging Anthony into her little experiment in the first place.

"That's okay! It'd be weird if we suddenly forgot everything, anyway." She smiles at the young zombie, even though he can't see it himself. "You know, I model for a living." She's not sure if she ever told him -- and it wasn't like he could see her face on one of the ads on the bus stop. "My first Echo was a scar, right across my chest. Great way to start your career off as a Numbered, huh?"

Misato's smile grows a little thin. "All this has really forced me to re-evaluate my life. I knew, logically, that I couldn't model forever, but I can't exactly model swimwear with a scar like this on my chest."

Misato doesn't know why she's telling Anthony this. It's really her first time talking about the scar with anyone in detail. She mentioned its existence before, but she never really got into her feelings about it.But somehow, talking to him about it just feels right. Maybe it's because she thought he'd understand. Maybe that's why she started talking to him in the first place.

"I know it probably sounds stupid, but... I just wanna see if it'll go away. So I can keep doing my thing, just... outside Locke City limits."

She lets out a half-hearted laugh.

"Guess I just don't want to grow up, y'know?"

He lets her response to his negative confirmation settle - and then turns back to attention.

He angles his head down and aside a moment, just acknowledgement.

And forced to reevaluate her life by an unforeseen imposition.

Drops it a little. Brow twitches, cringes with a little secondhand apology.

Angles back up between the thought of if he has any place saying this and actually doing it.

"No -- it doesn't sound stupid; I er - understand - ..."

The uncertainty of the degree to which he can assume to understand keeps it thin, but what of it's there is sincere - the thought behind it as he's refining resonates, all right, and he wants to think he's getting it right, that he's actually able to give what was wanted by telling him this.

He takes a breath to stall and furthering it. Comes with a slight hoarse whistle.

The best way to test that is to give further response that revolves around the same point.

"I've... been trying to -- think that this is all supposed to be happening; that it's - destiny, I - suppose."

His tone verged toward sheepish humor. It doesn't quite make it to the humor.

"Destiny, huh?" Misato's lips quirk into a little grin at that. "I never pegged you as a romantic."

It's then that the theme park begins to come into view; from here, all she can make out is the peak of one of the theme park's roller coasters from over a rise of trees.

"Still, I know what you're saying. When I think about it that way, I feel a lot better about the whole thing." She merges onto the off-ramp. "And it's not like this whole Numbered thing isn't without its benefits. I mean, I got a new pet out of the deal, so that's got to mean something, right?"

Misato doesn't wait for an answer. She navigates her vehicle into a turning lane and enters the queue to join the others waiting to be flagged into the theme park's parking lot.

"Besides, if I wasn't a Numbered, the two of us never would have met."

He perceives the change in speed - and as their momentum drops, so does his head.

They're no longer going. They're there. Or close enough.

And he still doesn't feel any different.

A chill deepening below his baseline one - if nothing else, that'll catch the first sign of any internal warming, when and if it comes. Posture stays slightly ducked - can't tell if anyone can see through the windows, or how close they are to being obliged to get the doors open.

Until that last remark.

He turns toward the spot her voice is coming from. Brow's lifted - and then knits as he tugs to a sheepish smile. A rolled-low-and-thin "Thank you -- a-gain..."

The trail-off is dry. True, that, on their meeting - and as far as he's concerned, any luck in it was all his.

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