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Jessica Jones isn't really sure what time it is, but probably wouldn't care if she did. The bartender told her to get out and she was getting out. Yeah, maybe she broke his finger before she left, but he shouldn't have stuck it in her face if he didn't wanna get a knuckle snapped.
She was told she smelled like vodka, but that's bullshit cause vodka doesn't really smell like anything. Out on the street, she fumbles for a moment, pulling out a crumpled pack of Camels and drawing one out, lighting it with a zippo that cost her more than she should've spent on the god damn thing in the first place.
Bleary eyed, she looks around, not sure where she wants to go. Her office/apartment is pretty far. She could fly but she'd probably run into a god damn wall and end up sleeping in a dumpster.
Out from an MTA station comes a poorly dressed black man. Clearly worse for wear, he looks as if he's come from some sort of war zone; a black tank top is knotted on one shoulder and smells of gasoline. Brown pants are dirty with stains of God knows what, and his brown boots scuff across the ground as if their soles have been somewhat melted. The one thing that certainly causes him to stand out are his eyes.
They are clearly not human. Human in shape, yes, but they are silver in color, and they glow when the light refracts just right, quite similar to those of a feline.
Emerging from the MTA station, he stops for a moment and looks around. He seems… tired, and not the kind of tired that comes with one who has spent too many bills at a bar. No, he carries with him the fatigue of a soldier, in spite of the fact that he looks nothing like one. There is whiskey on his breath, and as he makes way down the street, the African pulls out a pack of smokes from his back pocket, only to find that he has no lighter.
"… Fuck."
Jessica Jones glances over at the guy when he swears. Most people in this day and age don't cuss nearly as much as she does, so she notices when other people do. Bunch of puritanical motherfuckers.
The eyes and the funky clothes don't do much to dissuade her. She hasn't seen a shower in a few days herself, although he seems to be a bit heavier in the funk department than she. Been there, though.
"I gotcha," she says, waving her lighter a bit so he can see it. "I'm over here, if you're fuckin' blind. Your eyes look like shit, so I can't tell if they work."
"I can… fucking see," says the man. His voice is heavily accented. English is certainly not his primary language, but the promise of fire is like a beacon. He suddenly picks up the pace, walking like the sober person he is not, until he comes alongside Jessica and flattens himself against a wrought iron fence.
The cigarette finds itself crammed between pearly whites, and he turns it in the woman's direction. "Mah fucked up eyes do not mean I am blind. You do know? Yes?"
Jessica Jones takes a long drag on her own cigarette as she lights Kwabena's smoke for him, "Yeah, I know, but only barely cause you talk like you've got a mouthful of fucking marbles," she says.
"Guys with funny eyes gotta be careful. Buncha assholes on these streets late at night, might wanna pick a fight with somebody for lookin' a bit freaky. Especially black guys. Especially black guys who smell like they just lost a fight with a fucking gas station."
The Ghanaian takes a long drag from the square once it's lit, as if he hasn't smoked in days (read: hours). The smoke is held, savored, then snuffed out through nostrils that flare just a touch throughout the process.
"I won dat fight," he explains. "And will stomp on any asshole who wants to try a thing," he reiterates. Finally, he seems to gather some awareness of his surroundings, and those clearly inhuman eyes narrow slightly. "De Kitchen? Fuck. Got off too early. I hate dose trains."
Jessica Jones snorts and leans back against the wall, "Yeah, yeah, you're big and bad, I get it. Big and bad still gets the cops on their ass if they gangjumped down an alley," she says. "Not saying it's your fault, just saying be careful. Not that I give a shit," she says.
"There's a few bars around here you could hangout in, a dive motel three blocks over that won't ask too many questions but charges you like the hooker most people bring there, too much and by the hour," she says. "I know a good dumpster behind Chao Fu's. You'll only end up smelling a little like ginger and cat ass."
Kwabena is silent for some time after all of that. Inebriation will do that to a person. "No," he says after that silence, with a sense of drunken determination. "No, is not like dis at all."
He takes another long drag, closing his eyes while truly appreciating the smoke, the nicotine. "I know all of dese places," he tells the woman. "I drive taxi. Know all de places." Then he snorts a bit and laughs. "Gingah at cat ass would be welcome. I smell like dumpstah fire." He then turns toward Jessica, having produced a hip flask from his back pocket. "Street is good bar. Is cheap bar. Yes?"
Jessica Jones takes another drag, pluming smoke out of her nostrils and letting it drift amongst her dark hair, making her seem even paler by comparison. "Cab driver? Fuck, no wonder you smell bad, spending all day locked up like a sardine pickling in your own juice," she says.
To the last she shrugs, "Street's a shit bar with shit service, which is appropriate for the fucking neighborhood. All the bartenders in the Kitchen are fucking panty-wearing pansies who think I can't have a tenth shot of vodka cause I ain't swingin' meat. Ain't they heard of women's liberation? Shit."
She reaches into her jacket and pulls out a flask of cheap rotgut, taking a swig for herself before she begrudgingly offers it.
The remark about his odor draws a nonplussed smirk from Kwabena, a remark he does not answer. "Bunch of dickless wondah," the foreigner remarks, before popping the cap from his own swill. The flask was stolen; the engine degreaser something he lifted from the Lower East before hopping on a train.
"So, you're a woman," he remarks, the comment going dry at first. "I'm a negro. Mutant negro." He offers the flask in exchange for Jessica's, quietly wondering which one is filled with the more potent toxin. "We ah both fucked."
Kwabena lifts Jessica's flask in a mock toast, before swallowing a gulp of whatever the hell is inside.
Jessica Jones takes his flask, throwing back a shot of it, giving a cough as it hits the back of her throat. Still, she keeps it down, which is a testament to both her constitution and the degree of being a total drunk that she's reached.
"Christ, you could peel paint with that," she mutters, passing it back, "I'll stick to my own, at least it won't give me dragon breath," she says.
As to being a woman, she shrugs, "Everybody's fucked, just some people don't know it yet."
A choked laugh comes from the man as he exchanges one flash for another. "Must make do with what you have," he answers, before sniffing once and clearing his throat, a side effect of whatever poison was inside Jessica's flask. "So, what is it, you work here? Live here?" He casts a glance her way. "Hang out looking for de mutants to get drunk with, to, how is it, lament ovah bullshit?"
Jessica Jones nods towards the south, "I live about where the Village and the Kitchen kiss," she says. "Bars closer to my house I owe money, so I go a little farther to get a drink and a stool. But the bartender here's a dick, so I'm back out on the sidewalk," she says.
"That wasn't an invitation, by the way. Find your own place to sleep, I barely got room for me," she says.
Kwabena gives Jessica a sideward glance, then bursts out laughing. The cigarette is lowered during the affair, and after a few moments, he shakes his head and swallows down said laughter.
"Well, my place is, I believe, forty blocks dat way." He gestures toward the relative direction of uptown. Forty blocks would put him in Harlem. Go figure.
He turns to glance toward the woman again, seemingly sobered. "Dat wasn't invitation," he echoes, before turning aside and reaching for the woman's elbow. "Come. Let us find place good to drink, not full of idiots."