2021-11-25 - Walking Through Trash

It's not actually hard to find out where Alexander Clayton lives, if someone asks around a bit. "Crazy" Clayton's house is on Elm Street, up towards the end where Elm houses /almost/ start becoming respectable - more 'scrabbling working class' and less 'meth house'. The three bedroom is small, but surprisingly neat. The yard looks kind of terrible; apparently he didn't do much lawnwork during the 12 weeks when everything was a bit blurry. But there are no boarded up windows, and it even looks like someone touches up the paint and various things on occasion.

Alexander is currently inside, playing with a bright green conure. There are a heap of bird toys spread out on the dinky living room coffee table, and Alexander is coaching the bird through grabbing specific toys and bringing them back by voice alone. Each success gets a treat, which makes the bird chuckle and bob its head with glee. Aside from a big cage in one corner, and a very nice cat tree (currently occupied by a blue-eyed, white Ragdoll who is ignoring the bird Getting Attention), the furniture is shabby, jumble shop buys or roadside rescues. It's very neat, though, and the carpet, while cheap, looks new.

Isi is not SUPER stupid. She did disguise herself. It's not as awesome as Perdita could do, but she put on MAKEUP. (It makes her look like a really ugly stripper.) She also has her dark hair all tucked up under her hat. A nice warm coat hides her broken arm - though nothing can hide how awkwardly angled it is. Normal people don't walk around with their arms at perfect right angles.

As she walks she peers at each of the places on Elm. Every once in a while she comes closer to peeeeeer at a window from a few feet away. It's not awkward at all - or creepy. (Yes, yes it is Isi, wtf is wrong with you). It's that white cat that gets seen from the doorway and she lets out an, "awwwwwwwwwwwwwww." Yeah, that's loud.

The sound is a bit of a dead giveaway. Alexander's head comes up, and he sees...well, SOMEONE peering into his window from a few feet away, awwwing at his cat. The conure lets out a shriek and flies to its cage, diving inside the door and running over to the bell to ring ring ring. The cat, on the other hand, seems to take it as her due. As Alexander stands up, Isi can feel a pressure in her head, like fingers riffling through her brain. But whatever he finds there, he doesn't reach for his knife, at least, and instead goes to the door, and unlocks it.

The cat is sitting at his feet when he opens it, looking out like a princess. Alexander's voice is gruff, a bit irritated, as he says, "You might as well come in."

"Owwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww." Isi says as she feels that pressure in her head. She has never felt something like that before, and so interprets it like a headache. "Fuck," but then it goes away and she pulls her hands back from her temples. Curiosity is replaced with irritation as Alexander comes out the doorway with the cat at his feet.

"So. This is where you live." It's a super intelligent comment. Seeing as her cover has been ~blown~ she does go in, her eyes firmly NOT on Alexander. The cat has her attention. "What's its - her? his? name?"

Inside is...surprisingly normal. Shabby, but kept up well. The living room is neat (other than the bird toys at the moment), the dining area doesn't have a table or chairs - instead, there's an indoor garden of blooming flowers and herbs, which gives the air a faint, floral scent. The kitchen is battered but clean. The walls are mostly bare, except for a few pictures, and a framed copy of Alexander's college diploma. The pictures are mostly of an older couple - the man looking very much like Alexander is likely to look in twenty years, if he were happy. There's also a picture of a dark haired, dark eyed young woman on a boat in a scuba suit, clearly about to go into the water - she's beaming at the camera. A doorway leads off into the hallway with a few closed doors and an open door to a bathroom at the very end.

"This is where I live," Alexander agrees, blandly. He checks outside, then closes and locks the door behind her, as the cat saunters up to Isi and lifts her chin for her tribute of petting. The blue-eyed stare is imperious. "She's Bluebell," he says. He points to the cage, where the bird is decidedly less happy to see a visitor. "That's Luigi. You, uh, want anything? I have pop. Or I could make hot cocoa. Soup?" He looks more than a little awkward, as a host, but he seems determined to try.

Isi is curious, but the imperious mew has her kneeling only a step or two inside the door to give the cat her tribute. Much under the chin, a few strokes on top - wherever the cat wants. It's only proper as this is her home.

While petting she looks around, noting all the things about. Bird toys, pictures, diploma all get skipped across, and what her eyes linger upon is the garden. "Ah, water? Unless it's tap, then no thanks. Shit here is nasty." Further one gets from the head water the nastier it is. "But you don't have to." She seems as awkward as him at being a visitor. Thank god the cat is here to be a conversational topic.

"Bluebell, Luigi. They must be something special."

"It's tap," Alexander says, apologetically. "I'll get you some Coke." He moves into the kitchen, as Bluebell leans blissfully into the pettings. She's not shy about showing Isi exactly where to scratch, mostly by butting her head into the woman's hand until she gets what she wants. And when she's done, she stands and rubs once against Isi's legs, before sauntering back to her cat tree.

"They're good," Alexander says, with a soft little smile of affection as he comes out of the kitchen with two clean glasses of bubbling caffeine and sugar. He offers one to Isi, and gestures to the sofa with his other hand. "Sit down. If you want. Is everything okay?"

ABANDONED. Isi has to figure out what to do with her body once the cat decides that she's had enough. There's an under the breath mutter as she rises, and then moves towards the sofa as invited.

"Yeah." It feels weird to not be angry swearing at him - and Isi seems at a loss of what to say. So she's going to reach down and pick up one of those bird toys to fiddle it around in her hand. "Do you do that mind thing - a lot." Discomforted question.

There's a whistle from the cage when Isi touches Luigi's toy, and the bird suddenly explodes out of the cage to do a flying circuit around the room before landing on Alexander's shoulder to complain. Alexander reaches up to tickle his feathers as he settles on the floor across the table from the couch. Luigi glares indignantly at her, but Alexander smiles, a little. "More than I should. I didn't recognize you. And I solve crimes. Elm Street has the highest concentration of criminals living in the area other than the trailer park. Sometimes people try things. Tweakers or someone who thinks they'll prove what a hard bastard they are by knocking around the crazy guy." He shrugs. "Sorry. It's not good to use it too much, but...it helps."

"Fuck," Isi starts when that bird explodes out. The toy gets dropped so Isi can put her unbroken arm over her head. Bravery, thy name is not Isi. When the bird settles she keeps her arm over her air and then glares at the bird. "My people wear feathers in our hair and we don't always wait till they're dead." As if the bird could respond.

When Alexander answers the question she glances up. "If you didn't recognize me, that's good. I'm going stir crazy inside."

Luigi meets her glare for glare, puffing his feathers out and stretching his neck up like that's somehow going to make him look fierce and dangerous. Alexander reaches up and taps his beak a couple of times, making soft clicking noises under his breath. The bird bites the finger, but not hard, and then sulks its way back into a more normal shape, walking down to the table to grab the toy Isi dropped and drag it back to his side of the table. He huddles near it and mutters in a deep and almost human sort of voice.

"Sorry," Alexander says, again, but he's smiling like it's funny. "He doesn't really like most people. He won't attack you, though. Just bite you if you try and touch him." Fair warning, apparently. He clears his throat. "You realize you looked suspicious as fuck, right? You sort of look like a prostitute who got lost." He's a charmer, he is. Then his smile widens. "You got bored so you decided to visit me? That's surprising." He looks away, towards the closed door. "I have board games. And a Nintendo. Or vintage crime files, but no one ever wants to look at those."

"YEah, well you can shove it where the bird doesn't shine." Isi responds, irked at the bird for freaking her out and then not following through on its threat. Not that she knows what the bird thinks - personification ftw. She scoots away from it despite his assurance the bird won't hurt her.

"I don't do makeup often." That's her reply to the accusation of being a prostitute. "And no I didn't come to visit you. She says with faint heat. "I just needed to get out. If I wanted to stay inside I would have stayed in Seattle. This shit is driving me crazy."

The offer of activities has her shrugging a shoulder. "YEah sure, if that's what you want. I can go too," she jerks a head at the doorway. "

Alexander snickers at the response and her scooting away from Luigi. "Look how scary you are," he tells the bird, sounding proud of it. Luigi bobs his head, and goes back to playing with his toys. His attention shifts back to her, and something like sadness flickers in his eyes, before he shrugs. "Shouldn't go peeking into windows on Elm, then, unless you want more trouble," is his advice. There's a long pause, his expression peculiar, like he doesn't know quite what to do with her. "You can stay," he says. "If you want. Company is nice." He reaches for the glass of soda, takes a drink. "But we don't have to do anything, if you don't want. I don't have cable," he adds, with a look back at his small, CRT television. No streaming on that boyo. He glances back at her. "What do you like to do? In general."

"Your house was boarded up - what's the worst that could happen, someone tries to murder me?" Wow, that came out WAY more bitter than Isi had intended it to. Even she notices it and coughs to herself. Right. MOVING ON QUICKLY. "I hike - read, puzzles. But I swear if I see another book I'm going to puke.

Nothing like an overstatement to color everything. Hopefully he doesn't mind shoes on his sofa because she lifts up her leg to curl it against her chest and hugs it with her good arm. She's got that vibe of caged animal.

"Someone more dangerous than your current enemies try to murder you," Alexander says, like he genuinely thinks he's being helpful. Then, "Please don't throw up. This is new carpet." There's a span of silence where he just stares at her, thinking. He stands up, abruptly, and pads into the hallway. A door is opened up, revealing a bit of a little bedroom. Then it's closed again. A couple of minutes later, he returns, but now he's wearing his oversized jacket and some shoes. "Wanna go for a walk? I'll make sure no one recognizes you." A pause. "So you can take the stuff off your face. Or not. Whatever you want. Bathroom's in the hall."

So. That was weird. About sixty seconds in Isi gets antsy, and by the end of the second minute she's rising to her feet. Just leaving would be awkward too, so she just.... lingers. Literally - nothing not weird to do right now. When the door opens again she jumps - clearly at the end of her nerves. The wall isn't far away and she puts it at her back instinctively.

But it's just Alexander. She takes a deep breath, then another, before responding. "Yeah." As if to try to make up for looking like a little bunny she brushes past him down the hallway. The sound of water running and vigorous scrubbing comes. When Isi comes out the hooker makeup is gone. "So. How are you going to make it so people can't recognize me?"

Alexander is careful to keep his distance from her, especially when she jumps. His shoulders hunch defensively, and he slinks out of her way as she goes down the hallway. When she re-emerges, he's putting Luigi back into his cage, and locking the door, giving the bird a treat as compensation for the end of Outdoor Time. He turns and studies her. "I'll blend us in." His brow furrows. "Um. I can make people see things. Or not see things. Not...it's not invisibility. But you ever seen someone who was just so bland and boring that you couldn't have described them the second you take your eyes off of them? I can do that. And if someone sees through that, I can handle that, too."

He doesn't say how. He just goes to the back door, and unlocks it. "We can go this way. There are trails. We can stay away from people, for the most part."

"This fucking town," Isi replies to that revelation. Levitation, holes opened to another world... Just... "Sure. Why not. One more list of things that showed up in my grandmother's stories. Sure. If a fucking skinwalker comes out though, I'm running." She doesn't expressly state that she'll push him in the way in the way but there is that vibe there.

Her hat goes back on and it's not that she DOESN'T believe him, but she's going to stuff her hair back up under it again. Better safe than sorry. Having never taken off her coat it makes things easier to go. When the door is open she goes out and then pauses for him to lead the way."

"If a skinwalker comes out, running is a good response," Alexander replies. He, notably, does not reassure her that a skinwalker isn't going to come out; nor does he say anything like those aren't real. He lets them out of the house, and locks it behind him once they're out. It's cool and crisp, and for once, not raining - although the clouds up in the sky suggest that won't be the case tonight.

He looks around, like he's looking for something, or listening. Then leads the way through the backyard; there's another garden here, although it's fallow, now. There are little planter sticks there, though, suggesting something will go into the ground once spring comes around. Technically, the back yard's fenced, but it has more gaps than actual fence rails, so he's able to just walk into the trash woods behind the house. "Why do you live on Elm?" he asks, because that's definitely his business. "City employees don't earn that little."

Yeah. By the shiver that goes down Isi's spine at him repeating the word. Okay. Right. This is fine. Her coat gets pulled a bit tighter about her as she paces next him through the garden. She was ready to walk in total silence - but his question interrupts that. Her lips tighten but she pulls in a breath through her nose. "I'm not good with my own money." Talk about a weird quirk for an auditor. "I gamble. Not a lot - but walking into a casino's a bad idea. The rest," she is deliberately not looking at him, "I send it back home to my parents. There aren't a lot of jobs on the reservation."

"Oh." Alexander gives her a sidelong look. There's no condemnation or disapproval in it for the gambling; it's more like he's just updating some sort of internal file on her. Mention of sending money home, though, does get a brief smile, before his attention turns to the path. This looks like something that's walked a lot; it's trampled well into the dirt, and they pass little pockets in the trash woods here and there where people have dragged furniture or cinderblocks to sit and talk...or, by the condoms and pipes that Alexander steps over, do other things.

Despite that, it's not an ugly walk, especially as they get farther from Elm itself, angling towards the edge of town. A runoff pipe becomes a small creek, burbling alongside them. There are even tiny, tiny fish in it, swimming their little fishy lives. A few birds flit from branch to branch, and a stray dog briefly stops to stare at them before trotting into the underbrush. After that one question, Alexander seems content to walk in silence for a while.

Isi paces beside him as he leads the way. Each of those packets of trash has Isi's scowl deepening. She relaxes a bit once they pass out of the worst part of it, and her fingers stop twitching.

When they cross over that steam she pops out a random, "I really want to hate you." But no follow-up.

"Oh." Alexander misses a step, stumbles. His head ducks and shoulders hunch more. "I'm sorry." A long pause. "Whatever I did, I'm sorry. I don't mean to. I'm just--" he trails off for a bit. "I'm trying to be better. You want me to just walk you home?"

"You didn't do anything." Isi replies, rather than take him up on his offer to walk away. "But I can't figure you the fuck out. What are you? The creepy as fuck guy homeless guy," which, clearly he isn't, house seen. "The weirdo who make spirit peacocks... vanish." Yeah, Isi thinks that is weird. "But you also dragged my ass out off the side of the road and back to town, then helped try to straighten out this..." she doesn't have a word for it.

"Oh." That word is getting one hell of a workout, this day, and Alexander gives her another sidelong look, this one just a bit confused. "I'm Alexander Clayton," he says, when she's done. Then there's a sudden bright smile that takes about ten years off his face, although it's gone almost as soon as it's there. "I can wear other clothes. I have them. But they don't feel the same. You--" he frowns at her. "I don't know if you can. But things have feelings. Emotions. Inside of them. If people have used them before?" He tugs at the sleeve of the ugly olive jacket. "This belonged to a guy who fought in Vietnam. I can get pieces of that, sometimes. But he wore it after he came home. He wore it when relaxing with the woman who helped him look past those things. When playing with his kids. Soccer games and family football. It's filled with love." He clears his throat. "It feels good. To wear. If I start getting--angry, or scared, or sad. I can touch it and feel that. Most of my clothing is like that. It has good memories. Helps to keep me, uh, stable."

He kicks a rock into the underbrush. "I'm a weirdo, though. I know that. I know that. But it doesn't mean I want people to hurt. If I can stop people from being hurt, or killed, then why wouldn't I?"

Another shiver - that's NOT a skill that Isi has any interest in developing. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. She does give his coat another look with something other than 'ugh, so ugly' written in it. What she says aloud is not that though. "Because it doesn't affect you. You don't get anything out of helping people. What do you get out of it?"

Alexander falls into silence for a while. He's thinking over the question; he's got his thinky face on - which, unfortunately, is the face that looks like he forgot that he has to fake an emotion of SOME sort to look human, so it's just like a slack mask with black, staring eyes. The path is taking them closer to a road; there's the sound of cars in the distance, but the path keeps a few feet of brush between it and the road. Life floods back into his face, and he says, slowly, "I'm an empath. I pick up on people's emotions. As long as I can remember, I have. I didn't know how to turn it off. This town--" he frowns, "this town has a lot of people who are hurting, or hurting others. Imagine being, uh, six or seven years old? And knowing what the guy down the street does to his wife when he gets drunk. Feeling her pain. Her rage. Her hate when the two of them come over to have dinner with your parents. And not knowing how to explain it. Or how to make it stop."

He laughs, softly. "Uh, until we buried William, my range was close to twenty miles. That was when I was older, but when I was a kid - classrooms were hard. So many kids, feeling so much. And so many of them hurting, or angry." He takes a breath, lets it out in a gust. "I can shut things out, now. Mostly. But I can't forget it's out there. It's like...if you were treading water in an ocean, and watching people drown when you couldn't reach them. When the sun goes down, you can't see them anymore, but you know they're there. You know they're drowning. I...I'm not really a good person. I'm not a hero." There's a dark bitterness, a lash of self-loathing in that simple declaration.

"But I don't like when people get hurt. Not if they don't have to. It feels bad. I feel bad enough." He shrugs, looking inexpressibly awkward about every word he just said.

Isi doesn't interrupt him as he talks - explaining slowly. His face is weird enough that she takes a step away from him though - whatever people-feeling she might have is not working at the moment. All she's got is his face and tone of voice.

They're walking though - and it's easier to think in movement. She'll let them walk for a bit, thinking about what he said. "How do you block it - if you don't want someone else to feel what you're feeling?"

Alexander hums. "Depends on what you mean. If you mean someone stronger eavesdropping on you? They can probably do that." He gives her an apologetic look. "If I wanted to read your emotions, you probably couldn't stop me. Or if I wanted to change them." He clears his throat. "If you mean to stop yourself from projecting when you get scared, or angry, or upset?" He closes his eyes for a moment. "I've seen a couple of different ways. Some people build walls in their heads. Fog that no one can see through. A vicious jungle. Things like that. But I just make distance in my head. As if everything and everyone was way over there and I'm here, and I can't reach them. It's...hard to explain. But it helps me from leaking me onto them."

"No. Not the on-purpose shit." Isi's brow is firmly creased now, a face that someone's mama would say warningly 'your face is going to freeze like that' as a warning. "The... accident. It isn't right. To have other people's fucked up lives shoved in your face."

With that she's going to try it - as silly as it sounds to her brain, to just... push. Make it go away. The imagery that ends up coming to her is smoke like coming off of a wildfire. It's hot and crisp at the edges. Almost hostile.

Alexander shrugs. "Lot of things aren't right with the world," he says. There's a kind of resignation to it; an observation of what he sees as truth, with the implied and there's nothing that can be done about most of them left unsaid but clearly hanging in his expression. He watches as she concentrates, as she pushes. He sniffs, almost like he can smell the smoke, and edges a little away from her. But all he says is, "Does that feel better for you?"

The tang of smoke stays, but lessens when Isi takes her direct concentration off of it.

"No." Her tone is sharp with the word. "But I don't like the feeling that you can just... pick it up. Or anyone." The last gets tacked on after a brief glance at him. "My pain is my own, I don't want to fucking share it without meaning to."

There's another of those thinking silences, before Alexander says, "I know. It's creepy. If it makes you feel better - there aren't a lot of people who can do what I can do. Not even in Gray Harbor. And most of them don't want to. They shut out more than I do." His voice turns dry. "That makes them able to function better than I do." He takes the left hand path when the trail they're on splits in two. This swings them towards the industrial areas of town - mostly closed up for the day, and silent, although there's still an oily scent to the air, turning fishy as they get closer to the river.

Isi wrinkles her nose as they get closer to that smell. Her coat gets tugged up a bit so she can cover her mouth and breathe through it.

Except when she wants to respond to him. Then she has to tug it down, get the words out, then pull that sucker back up before she can taste that nonsense. "Is that how you knew I'd been in an accident up there? Or were you just a weirdo wandering in the forest after dark?"

"Both things can be true," Alexander says, with a smile. "I was a weirdo wandering in the forest after dark. And when I heard the crash, I reached out to see if I could feel anyone hurt. I felt you, walked in that direction. I didn't really know it was you. I don't know your mind well enough to know that. Just felt enough to know it was someone." He notices the covering of her mouth, grimaces. "Sorry. It's stinky by the river. We won't be here long." And the trail is already curving away from the river, back towards the more commercial area of town. There are the occasional side trails that suggest a fair number of people walk along these to get from place to place, if they don't have cars or have reasons not to use them.

Isi has recently been introduced to the car-less side of things, so seeing those trails is actually useful, and she misses a bit of what he says as she notes each one and determines that she is going to walk them and see where they go.

"I hate the pollution." They've talked enough about really personal things now. "There are places on the rez like that, but mostly not. It's easy to get away."

Alexander looks over towards the factories. "I don't really notice it," he admits. "Gray Harbor's always been a lumber and shipping town, so it's always been..." he makes a gesture towards the industrial area. "It's probably cleaner now than it was, but mostly because a lot of the mills and factories have gone out of business." He puts his hands in his jacket, and walks on. "Do you like to garden?"

Isi shakes her head at the question. "I like to be in nature - but a green thumb?" More shaking of her head. "I prefer being more active. I couldn't do anything stuck in Seattle - it took too long to get out and get back. In college and grad school there wasn't time." And her distinct disgruntlement about that time of her life is clear even without empathy. "Kayaking, hiking. camping - come summer again and I intend to stay in the forest as long as possible." THIS is when Isi realizes that she just talked way too much and shuts up.

Alexander listens, and if maybe there's a bit of disappointment that she's not a gardener, he still seems amused at her enthusiasm for the outdoors. "You should talk to Roen. August Roen. If you have time. He does a lot of that sort of stuff, I think. Has a cabin out in the woods. It's very relaxing...they built more of them. Tiny cabins, but nice. If things change for you, maybe you could rent one of them. Might help."

He kicks another rock on the path, sending it sailing off into a bush. "Summers are nice. Here. Even the Shadows don't fuck with people as much. Just stay away from the abandoned mill."

"I'll think about it." That's a nice way of being like 'yeah, that ain't happening. "My place is cheap, especially if I take a roommate. The electricity works most of the time - and the water heater only fails sometimes." There's a lift of her shoulder. "It's not nice but it has the basics."

"I'm looking forward to it. I came right when the storm was starting - then the twelve weeks..." all the lost time.

Alexander turns his head to give Isi a look. It's the look that says that, for a moment, he has decided she's the crazy one. He opens his mouth, then pauses, shuts it, shakes his head. Moves on from whatever he was going to say with, "Yeah. A lot of lost time." A pause. "Guy I knew when he was a kid here left town, became a shrink. Wants to try something to see if I can remember some things from that time. Gonna try it, see what happens."

Isi saw that, and her lips purse together holding back her own defensive words for that. "I have a paper trail." Abruptly, deciding to keep up with his new line of conversation. "Just a trail of documents with my signature so I must have just... kept going. I don't remember any of it, but when I need a reference to something and I think it can't exist I check my index and it's fucking there. I will never get use to how weird this place is."

"Me too," Alexander says, apparently more than willing to be diverted to the fucked up mysteries of Gray Harbor. "My notes aren't as good as they usually are. But I took cases. I went places. I have notes on things. I'm trying to trace things back, but," he spreads his hands, "people who don't stand out don't know why I'm asking, and people who do don't remember. So getting confirmation is hard."

The trail is bringing them near main street; the picturesque little boutiques and hotels that the City Council wishes was all the tourists saw of Gray Harbor are in the distance, although Alexander avoids a trail that would take them in that direction, and instead takes one that's curving back towards the neighborhoods and Elm.

"Government keeps things in triplicate - especially here when the electronic files just are...crap." She shakes her head. But they start coming closer and she was fading a step back or two... and then he's turning back to the Elms. Huh. Being a couple places behind lets her stare at his backside. "I'm sorry. That you had to feel of that."

The jacket is big enough to fall down to his thighs from the back, making the view mostly unexciting, but the jeans are form fitting enough that it's clear that he walks -- or whatever it is that Alexander does with his days -- quite enough to stay in shape. He doesn't seem to mind that she's walking behind him, though, and just talks to the air like she's right there. "Good records are important." The last remark makes him pause in walking, for just a moment, before he picks back up again. "Shit happens," he says, after a moment. "But thanks. I'm sorry people wanted to kill you just because you're good at your job."

Not his BUTT, his back. So she doesn't particularly note him being in shape. His pause has her coming back to his side. She's NOT looking at him now. Too awkward now. "I shouldn't have reported it. Shit can't happen to you if you just pretend it didn't happen. Now I know. Just don't touch."

Alexander snorts. "Wrong." Now the sidelong look is disappointed. "You did the right thing. Reporting it. I'm sorry you were put in danger. But you still did the right thing. People should do the right thing, when they can." The path is becoming more trashwood again, emphasis on the trash, a sure sign they're nearing Elm street. And Isi's end of it, too, if the houses dimly seen through the breaks in the scrub wood are any judge.

They have very different moral codes here - but Isi lets his reply go without argument, this time. Instead she spies a plastic bag that seems to be more whole and less hole. She picks it up and hangs it over her cast. Then she starts picking up some of the smaller things as they move along. It'll make exactly zero difference in the overall trash levels but it makes her feel better.

When they get to her front door she tosses into a metal trashcan perched between houses. There she just... stops. Awkwardly. "Sorry to be interrupting you."

Alexander also stops. He looks around, but doesn't seem to see anything that alarms him any more than usual. "You're not," he says. "If you were, I'd have said I was busy," he adds, with a shrug. "If you stick to the trails, you should be fine for walking, if you get feeling like you need to. Nobody seems to have a full-time watch on your house, or we would have been followed. The trail was a good time to try something."

He thinks for a moment, then says, "You're not a complete asshole. If you want to come by, you can. Just don't insult my bird." He looks at the house, frowning at the boarded up window like it offends him. "Don't die." He turns without another word, and starts walking out to the street, then back towards his home.