Marie-Ange & Wade | Tuesday Evening (backdated)

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Wade meets up with Marie-Ange in New Orleans.


Wade had walked off the plane, his duffel bag's handles held almost carelessly with two fingers, the bag itself dangling over his shoulder. He had his aviators on as he exited Louis Armstrong International and found himself in the sun and relative warmth of late winter in Louisiana. Three minutes later and he'd picked up his rental, plugged his phone in to charge, and pulled up the directions he'd downloaded before leaving South Sudan.

The car was unassuming. Wade drove the speed limit. He used his turn signal. He came to complete stops at signs and red lights.

His time in Africa had been... cathartic, to a degree. He felt less like he was about to vibrate out of his skin though he couldn't seem to turn off the hyper awareness and paranoia that lingered. That was why it took him nearly three hours to get from the airport to the small house in the French Quarter the directions led him to. Had to make sure he wasn't being tailed. Had to make sure the potential tail wasn't a tail. Had to tail the potential tail that turned out to be an LSU student apparently returning his grandmother's car. Had to tail the grandmother just to be sure.

But he got there, to that small house with the tiny garden and the streetlamps that still had real fire in them. Pulling into the minuscule parking area, Wade pushed his sunglasses up and squinted a little. The light was dying, coloring the sky to the west in shades of burnt orange and pink, as he opened the door and began walking the property line to check for weaknesses and potential entry points.

New Orleans had enacted a change on Marie-Ange. The pencil skirts and just-so blouses and sweaters were gone, still in their tidy piles in New York. Even the jeans and top she'd worn on the trip down with Amanda were packed in her suitcase.

She greeted Wade at the door - barefoot, in a loose linen skirt that flowed around her ankles, and a tanktop that was smudged here and there with charcoal and graphite. "Nothing unwanted here would dare cross the property line. Six generations of voudoun and seers and witches lived here once. Raccoons do not even get into the trash most nights, if I remember to put out something for them."

Wade smiled. It was, perhaps, the first time he'd really smiled since the world had gotten a do-over. "Heya, ladybird," he said, ducking back into the car through the still-opened door to grab his duffel bag. "You put anything particularly delicious out for the raccoons? I heard somewhere that they like cheese." He quirked an eyebrow at Marie-Ange, almost as if he was testing the waters, investigating the feel of things with a sixth sense. She'd seemed... distressed when she texted him. He hadn't been entirely sure what to expect upon arrival.

"I gave them yoghurts, because they like it, and you do not." Marie-Ange explained. "Also spinach, some chicken, and some brie rinds. I think they left me a present for the brie rinds, because yesterday the garden had snails and now it does not." She turned and did something to the bundle of leaves and sticks and herbs at the threshold of the house. "I need some of your hair, so the house likes you."

There was probably a time in his life when a request for his hair so a house would like him would have made Wade at least do a double take. Not so any longer, though. He bent down to get the ceramic knife from his boot, then sliced off a small portion of hair at the front where it needed to be trimmed, anyway. "Here you go," he said, offering it to her. He was still trying to get a read on her but mostly he was glad to be Stateside again, glad to see her, glad she was still his Marie-Ange and not some other version of herself with no recollection of him.

It only took a moment to tuck the lock of hair into the bundle, in with the red and gold hairs already there, and the coil of black and grey dreadlock tucked under all three, and then set the bundle back down with a gentle little pat. "I think I need to probably stay here for at least another week." Marie-Ange said. She ducked under Wade's arm as he held the door open and then shut it behind him as he came in. "No more nausea headaches, we finally got rid of those, but I would rather not demonstrate just yet to any of the new people my habit of sleepwalking and drawing on walls." She pointed with her whole arm at the kitchen wall, half covered in charcoal sketches. "As long as I clean it before I go, Tante won't turn me into a frog."

"But you'd make such a cute frog," Wade said. "Probably one of the little green ones with the red eyes and the yellow stripe. I could build you a terrarium with a log and some rocks and a waterfall. It'd be awesome." His eyes trailed over the wall, snagging on certain images. The symbolism eluded him - he dealt in literal death most of the time, not figurative or metaphorical. Setting his duffel bag down, he quirked a smile. "You want something to eat?"

"I want to be a poison frog, one of the really colourful ones." Marie-Ange said. "And yes, I have run out of microwave food and grubhub does not deliver well here." She pointed to a clear spot on the wall with a charcoal'd in phone number. "But the local pizza shop does, and I think they are probably not quite sick of me yet."

Wade could live on pizza alone and enjoy himself just fine - he was fairly certain Marie-Ange needed more than green peppers and onions and whatever other kinds of vegetables could fit on a pizza. "Cool," he said, nodding. He'd see if he could find some place that delivered groceries. Maybe. He could, at the very least, grill a steak. "So what're the odds of you actually being turned into a frog?" He paused briefly, then continued, "And what would you like on your pizza?"

"Not flies." Marie-Ange answered, slyly. "Chicken? Oh, they have a nice shrimp and basil pizza, and I like sun dried tomatoes, those are good also." She bent to flail around under the tiny kitchen table and pulled out a pair of sandals that seemed half made of ribbon and cloth. "If we walk there, we could also go to the market and the butcher?"

Wade grinned despite himself. It was good to see Marie-Ange again, good to be near her. He felt a bit of the tension bleeding out of him, his shoulders loosening just a bit. "Sounds like a plan. I could go for some Cajun cooking, too. Maybe we can look into gumbo for tomorrow."

"Yes. Also not with flies in it." Despite the complicated-looking nature of the sandals, Marie-Ange had them on in a few quick motions. "Plus walking, it means you can reassure your little paranoid shoulder Wade that I picked a safe little house to borrow and that Tante's people do not want to do us harm?"

"Yeah," Wade said, only a little sheepish. The paranoia had been ingrained before the world ended. He wasn't going to apologize for it rearing its head and deciding to stick around after. "That'd be good, too. I really do trust your judgement about these things. It's just..."

Marie-Ange shook her head, but with a smile. "It is hard to shake bad habits, and harder to shake bad habits that are also sometimes good habits." She reached into the pocket of her skirt and took out a wrapped set of tarot cards. "I know that, yes. But also I know it is unhealthy to obsess."

"My trip to Africa helped a bit," Wade said. "And I've been careful about other things. Just. I know it's not logical." He shook his head. Trailing a granny through New Orleans wasn't logical, it probably wasn't healthy. Hopefully being back in the States would help him mellow out now that he'd worked through the anger that'd been plaguing him. "Believe it or not, this is better than it was."

"Does that mean I will not have to find fourteen knives in my art bag again?" The question was asked almost playfully, but still with an edge of caution. "Because the knives everywhere is excessive."

Wade eyed her back, equally cautious. "Three? Because you have that knife-y thing in there, anyway?"

"I have an ex-acto knife, and a pen knife for sharpening charcoals or pencils sometimes. So two, unless you were counting the pen knife in the three? It might be yours. I might have stolen it." Marie-Ange offered, before huffing a little and shaking her head. "I can make my own, you know. It is not as though I am not regularly armed just by existing." She patted her arm. "I was thinking about expanding the tattoo, to better enable that."

"I was counting the pen knife in with the three," Wade said, relaxing just a little. "And I like the idea of expanding the tattoo. But when your images go pfft and turn into goo, it gives you headaches and sometimes it's better not to have to deal with headaches. Especially when people are trying to kill you." He had a scar on his belly now to match the others on him as proof that assholes got lucky. Lately, they'd been betting lucky a lot.

"What good is three, when one good one will do though?" Marie-Ange asked. "Especially if I do not know they are there."

"Back up in case something happens to the one you knew about," Wade answered almost automatically. "Also, you totally know I stick extra knives in your stuff, you'd probably fall out of a chair or something if you didn't find at least one extra somewhere."

To Marie-Ange's credit, she paused and counted to three before answering. "And then I would find one under the chair. Your paranoia is a little..." She rubbed her forehead and sighed. "I do not want to have an argument when you have just arrived, it ... it has been nice to not find ammo in my shoe boxes though."

Wade frowned a little and rubbed at the back of his neck. They'd had conversations similar to this one, but he'd never been strung this tightly. Of course, the world had never actually ended before. "Okay," he said. "Sorry. It's just. Y'know. I don't... want anything bad to happen. To you."

"If you had a therapist, they would tell you that you cannot control for everything." Marie-Ange offered. "I am a terrible therapist. I say you cannot control for everything and stop putting ugly knives in my purses. Pick knives that go with my outfits, and tell me first, so I do not pull out a big ugly knife when I am in the library." Well, she hadn't pulled it out of the bag. It was just there and a little startling to find.

"I can do that," Wade said, suddenly smiling again. "I can definitely do that. I've seen some knives with this really intricate filigree. I'd want to check their functionality, but they'd definitely not be big and ugly."

Marie-Ange nodded. "I can work with that. Oh, and you have to tell everyone I am a frog."

"I can do that, too," Wade said, nodding agreeably. "How frog-like are we going, here? You know I'm kind of like a method actor. How authentic do we want this to be?"

Mischief played over Marie-Ange's face. "As long as I do not have to put on a little green leotard and ribbit for you in the bedroom, I think we should take this as far as possible."

Wade tilted his head to the side a bit, one eye squinted slightly shut, and very obviously considered the pros and cons of Marie-Ange in a green leotard before he chuckled softly and said, "Excellent. How do you feel about terrariums?"