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Razor didn't know how long he had been on the bank of that pond. Nor how long he had been walking through back alleys trying to find his way home. It was a lot more difficult even at night when he lost his hat. Disguise is pointless at that point, but it's all wet now. So it's just a terrible idea to keep it on, or to take it off. Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't.
He'd rather risk keeping it on than exposing himself. But this back alley was different. It's where he'd stumble, and fall, and slouch up against a back door to some place he'd never been, but at least the door was recessed, so it was somewhat of a hiding spot for now. And the light above the door wasn't working. SO that's a plus, too.
As Razor closes his eyes, without any breath it might seem that he was dead if one didn't know his metaphysical attributes.
*
Surrounded in jelly from a demonic fish monster is not, by anyone's standards, an enjoyable moment. The cloying, rancid infernal slime has the consistency of a jelly and the smell of whale oil that went off, mildly corrosive. Still, the pond water, foul as it is, dilutes that effect wearing away on the metal man's ferrous carapace. Clothes, such as they are, will suffer worse, pitted with holes nd more.
The young woman responsible for firing psychokinetic arrows from the shoreline does not wade into the pond, perhaps threatened by the turbulent waters and the body parts that are all that remains of a victim devoured by the fishy horror of the deep. She flickers along the margins of the wooded path that fringes the other half of the pond, mindful for insects that seek to eat the unfortunate, beasts prowling warm humans, burrowing horrors waiting to erupt when she passes. It's not a safe hour, not a safe time.
She moves, as he moves, furtive and cautious. Wearied somewhat, Elizabeth turns into the street and can only hope they fail to notice her features as she subconsciously wraps her thoughts around herself, blurring out of memory. The mind's eye peers past her, though no camera will. Who is looking, though, and sending off their film to be developed? No one important. She twists through the alleyway, escaping the full weight of Midtown and its crowds. It's safer to escape here into Harlem, to seek out a given bar where expatriates are welcomed and no one asks questions, but her memory of how to reach there is mostly on autopilot.
He might see her first. He might have questions.
*
When he does notice her, it's not because he sees her. More of a subtle feeling. A hint. Might just be a really good guess. Either way, duplicating this moment would take a long time for him. But he can just.. vaguely sense her. Or that someone is near with his eyes still closed. "Who's there?" He asks, slowly opening his eyes. Maybe she was passing in front of him, maybe she was at the end of the alley. Really he knew when someone was following him. He's had to ditch a tail or two in the past through the seedier parts of town.
"Who are you?" Echoes with his slightly hollow metallic voice.
*
Whom are they, man and woman? Her face would be recognizable in a heartbeat, proof of celebrity status, though not to the extent of the likes of Tony Stark. If it were not blurred, she would probably be accosted, people turning to see her. Not in an alley, though, a place where she cuts through and fears little. Proof enough of a strange mind under there; most good girls don't cut between buildings, you know? When he slips into a question, she pauses, her hand raised to her chest and fist folded against her sternum. Doubtful much was seen of the powers she wields, but it never hurts to be cautious and affected the wounded bird look. "Pardon?" The voice is foreign, English as English comes, and the dark rose parts her lips. "I didn't mean to interrupt, chap. Headed on a walk."
*
His mind instantly puts together the idea that either she has seen him before, or he's not an uncommon sight to her. The foreign part wasn't so important to him. Nor was any celebrity status. If he could recognize her, he would have said something. "Do I not frighten you?" He asks, looking toward her, but it's like he can't focus on her, so he looks down to the ground between them. His own accent was so faint, but still there. Slavic in tune.
Her being headed on a walk made him tilt his head just a little. "On a walk? Are you the one that's been following me?" He might usually be able to tell who it was, but he's out of sorts right now after fighting that watersnakefishosaur demon.. thing.
*
Not a horror? Perhaps she's stoned, one of those kids high on marijuana and the other poisons and vices of the year. Would it be a reason for her response? The smile touching her lips is polite rather than warm, her frosty blue eyes clear but not lively. "Frighten me?" She tips her head. "Why should I be afraid? Are you planning to hurt me?" It may be a deliberately concerning factor, and her mouth curves up in a bitter turn. He might be something so very different from her, but she just helped to murder a demon fish. Perhaps her mettle is a bit different than tissue paper.
Her gaze follows him, even as he questions her. "Follow you? Why?"
*
Razor sighs forcedly, and leans back against the door. "No." To her question of it he's planning on hurting her. He pushes to stand up and takes a few uneasy steps before he looks left then right up and down the alley, gaining his bearing. He ignores the next response of a question with a question except for a demure look at her, not amused by the possibility she's playing coy with him.
A turn on his heel and he's headed the same direction he was before. Not as quick, not as paranoid. He just hit a wall of not caring much about people seeing him. Likely culprit was probably her talking to him. But in any case, he's still headed home. To get these wet clothes off of him, maybe get a bike to eat, then get some rest. "Bye," he says flatly to her.
*
One might say they had no intention of harming another, and do so anyways. Believe whatever they will, causing no harm to one another. Trust is a hard won currency in this city, in this day and age. Elizabeth heads down the path, then, bound down the alleyway in search of her drink, her future in a place where she can forget the horrors of the Hellmouth. She conducts herself with a stately, quick movement.
"Bye-bye," she repeats, echoing into the night the same chirpy farewell he gave her, in a terrible sense.
*
His mind was racing, wondering about who that girl was, why did she seem familiar, was she that person that was there at the pond that helped him? He didn't really get a good look at her. Maybe he's just being paranoid again. All these things ran round and round his brain.
He arrives at the stairs leading down to the door that goes into the basement of some random apartment building that's nothing special. Finger made into a key, and moments later the door is unlocked and he's going inside. He closes the door behind him, but doesn't lock it because he's trying to recall her face. And he can't. He was just looking at her minutes ago! Razor removes his wet clothing and replaces it with dry. Then back out the door to check the alleyway for something to feast upon.
*
The dark-haired woman saunters on, though the narrow beam of her thoughts projects outwards in awareness to pull at the individual minds around her. She can detect the man on the other side of the wall, daydreaming about the next basketball game and if he can get laid on other weekend. Beyond him, the stressed mother certain this time, this time he'll marry her, once he learns she's going to have another baby. Further up, someone wishing he could put his fist through the face of that police officer who picked him up, and he's working a double just to make up for the rent payment he's lost…
And the man. The one man, made of metal, made of something beyond metal, that proves to be more than a tin soldier after all. She drifts in and out, lucky enough to be able to walk, chew bubble gum, and psychically maraud the unsuspecting all at the same time. It's a bit of a magical moment, especially if she gets to pause. A cat dashes in front of her, meowing. Elizabeth frowns, turning, trying to keep a bead on him. Him: name. Age. Why here, why metal?
*
A flash Elizabeth would see of a drivers license sitting on the table. Partially metallized arm and hand holding it, looking at it. Dimitri Gregorovich Lyagushkin. Russian name, at least. Birthdate puts him at thirty one beginning of November. The why here mental projected question gets a scramble of memory clips, nothing too understandable all in a big pile like that. But the metal part, mental images of looking in the mirror over the course of a year in late teens, early twenties, show progressively having to cover more and more of himself as patches turn to entire body parts, chestnut brown hair falling out in clumps as scalp turns as well. One day, finally smashing the mirror and this side of the cinder block wall when there is nothing left, after watching the last portion of his eye turn into that biometal and he got to watch as the last bit of looking truly human left him. A bright, ice blue eye, now grey and dull, lacking a defined pupil.. or iris, take a pick. Anger and confusion. More confusion and chaos in his brain than many others.
*
What she learns is stolen; the words are not found, even as she leans against the stone steps of a walk up building that hosts too many souls for this few rooms. Arms crossed, violet head bowed, the model might seem less an outsider than meets the eye, with such a position. Wary and closed off; it gives her time to adjust to borrowed thoughts. She sifts through identities and dismisses them. One question is answered, then, one quizzical venture.
Elizabeth might wander off then, but her range is fairly settled on where the mental signature that interests her is. She eventually ducks into a cheap deli-grocer combo along the street, buying a pack of gum and a sad, sad sandwich for a buck. Then it's back out to the street, moving as if she has business to loiter there, eating her ill-gotten food. If and when he appears, what is he going to say? Hey you, don't eat on this turf of mine?
*
His answer isn't anything right away. A stern look at her from under the wide brimmed black fedora. The heavy duty cotton trenchcoat he wears is an off shade of black, likely faded from age. The clinking of things in the garbage stops for a moment when he looks at her, but continues when he goes back to what he was doing. An old steel spoon. Tin cans. Aluminum cans. One he has to pour out of what was left of the beer that once was drinkable.
All the small assortments are smashed by hand (including the spoon effortlessly bent) and a piece of rebar bent into a coil shape. All things put into a burlap sack that was getting pretty full. "Come to watch the Tin Man scrounge in the trash?" It was at her, the homeless person nearby was simply keeping to themselves in their hovel made of boxes from a nearby store's refuse.
*
The lettuce deserves to be thrown into the trash, stamped, and burned for all the insult it gives to the taste buds. Let it be done away with, and the bread chewy enough to be 56% pulp products is little better. Luck would have it that she eats very little, making a study of her surroundings from that forgettable corner. Traffic comes and goes. Some will look at a man looting a dumpster in an age when nothing is recycled, and everyone assumes a fresh mine for bauxite or tin will open up if the last is exhausted. What a world.
"Having lunch, bloke. I'm not poking fun at your fate," she replies, looking up when he addresses her. It may be she was distracted all along, or feigning it. He'll have to guess. Elizabeth is not about to enlighten him. "Not sure why all that gets tossed. Wasn't there a shortage in the war? You'd think people remember things like that," she adds, for sake of nothing other than making light. It beats talking about the weather, which is hot, clear, and summertime still. For an English woman in New York, it will never be much enjoyable.
"I can' t quite put together why you attacked it. You threw a rock, didn't you?"
*
He pulls up the bag that was mostly full anyway before all this. "People forget," he slings the sack over his shoulder, "People don't give a shit once a cause is done with, or sometimes even while it's going on. Hell, give it another ten years and those born after the war, some won't even know it happened or worse, claim it was all a sham. People don't give a shit if they don't have to." Cynical view of the world.
On the topic of the snakefish demon, "It wasn't willing to leave me alone. So I chose not to leave -it- alone." The fact it killed someone and could have done it again wasn't a forethought in his mind, if she were at all picking up on his thoughts. He had no obvious reason to shield them, even if he knew how to.
*
"People do." She can agree with that even as she tries to pull away the crust from the bread, though it resists with the force of super glue. The thick bread is too much a piece of stone for her to make any sense of. A bit of massaging it between her fingers might help, and she tries, at any rate. Tries to soften the blow, tries to prepare something she can consume. It may not be a venture especially fortunate for her.
"Unusual for that to coexist with ducks. Wherever did it come from?" She holds up the sandwich. "I wonder if their bills could get through this. Probably not." She chips away at it anyways.
*
He looks at her dealing with her sandwich. He reaches into the sack and pulls out a tin can. Baked beans probably. And he simply takes a bite out of the crushed can, chewing much like a normal person eating a potato chip before he swallows the now slightly masticated metal piece. "I don't know. I just know it was there and entertaining until it turned to me." His neck looks a little pitted and corroded instead of it's 'healthy' look. "Does it matter? It's not here anymore. And what do you care about it? It wasn't your pet, was it?"
*
"You're a bloody goat." Yes. How very polite she is, almost laughing. "You probably can chew your way through a lead pipe, can you? Marvelous. I can't even begin to imagine how much fun that is." Her heel rolls on the ground. "Cheaper by a trice than this garbage." Sandwich set aside, she crosses her arms under her chest and regards him, even, wiser than her blasé expression possibly could let on. Elizabeth frowns a little. "Pet? No, I prefer to keep things with actual skin and thoughts of their own. Not the sort of girl who needs a clingy muck-around-in-the-pond monster. You?"
*
Razor simply shakes his head at being called a goat. Better than some things he's been called before. "Not the most elegant. But yes, cheap." The rest of that piece is gone in an instant into his mouth and forgotten moments later. A quiet moment as Razor adjusts the sack on his shoulder, walking towards the stairs that lead to his domicile, he doesn't say it, but the thought of being a goat that technically doesn't have skin being a good thing right now, considering how she commented on him being a goat without second thought a moment ago. "Good luck with your own garbage meal."
*
Hey, goats are cute. And realistically useful when it comes down to fitting things in their face, and chewing through trouble. It's all that goatly glory no one ever expects turned to good purpose. She decides to toss the sandwich in the nearest trash can, getting up to stash it away. "Not my pet, and from the silence from you, not yours either. Make sure you take care. I think the park is a nasty place. And I don't know I'm hungry at all after remembering that thing." She shrugs her shoulders.
*
It's not long before he'd disappeared into his place without so much as a goodbye. At least now they have spoken more than just two word sentences to one another, but his lack of social ability shows painfully clear when he disappears behind his door. More worried she knows where he lives now than anything else. But at least once he's by himself and has everything situated for his 'meal', he smiles, shakes his head, and gets to consuming all the stuff he gathered.