Dinosaurs - [Veronica]

[plantfood]

Three weeks on the island now and Mathias thinks he's ready to leave the Compound without assistance from alcohol. He stands near the front steps, watching the trees with a faintly wary gaze and waiting for Veronica. He'd asked her a few days ago to show him the dinosaurs, thinking that he'd need those few days to prepare mentally, but even with that time he's not sure just how prepared he really is. Maybe the only thing that can prepare him for going back into the jungle is actually going into the jungle. It's not ideal, but it is what it is and Mathias can no more change the island than he can change what happened to him before this place.

The weather is warm, hot and humid, and already he can feel sweat prickling his scalp, but it's a comfort to know that no matter where he goes on the island, the Compound is never far away. Despite this, despite knowing he's in no danger here, he's learned his lesson from last time and is carrying a small pack with enough water to last two weeks and several bags of nuts he's found in the kitchen. It isn't enough to survive on for longer than a few weeks, but it's more than he'd had in Mexico. Just in case anything should happen.

Around him, there's constant movement. People coming to the Compound from their homes elsewhere on the island, people leaving, fresh from showers or breakfast, clean, warm laundry piled high in baskets. There are children in the playground nearby and he watches them for a moment, watches their parents, wonders which of them came to the island on their own and which were born here. It's still strange to him, how this place exists, but it's preferable to whatever might have happened back in Mexico.

He's early, he thinks, but it gives him time to think and to watch, two things he's very good at. So he waits, his thumbs hooked tentatively in the straps of his pack, making sure not to aggravate his healing burns.

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[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

The island had become a home to Veronica, more than Neptune had been in the years before she'd left. She didn't trust it not to mess with her or to let her keep the people who mattered, but she was at least sure of the plants. That much security, at least, she could help him find, too.

"All kinds," she agreed, glancing over with a sly smile. She started to walk, hands in her pockets. "Some of them don't even eat people. I can't actually tell which are which yet, but it doesn't matter on the right side of the line."

[plantfood]

"I think the ones with the pointed teeth are the ones that eat people," Mathias tells Veronica with a secret smile, as if he's sharing some great knowledge she's somehow missed out on. "And the ones with the flat teeth don't."

That said, he hopes that they don't get close enough to see the teeth. Mathias figures if they're seeing teeth up close, they're probably going to get eaten either way, flat teeth or pointed teeth. "How far are they?" he asks, casting a glance up at the trees as he walks alongside her.

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

Veronica grinned. "Let's make a point of not finding out if you're right," she said. "They're a few miles out, toward the more isolated part of the island. Out that way." She pointed, looking around as they walked. There was usually a length of branch somewhere she could use as a walking stick and potential weapon, just in case they did end up too close by accident. All of Arya's lessons had to be good for something other than taking a whack at John Sheppard.

[plantfood]

"Far away," Mathias says, looking out through the trees and although his expression doesn't change, he feels a brief, overwhelming fit of panic. It's gone a moment later and he looks at Veronica again.

"How do I know you're not taking me out to the middle of nowhere to get rid of me?" he asks, teasing softly. "What's the phrase? To whack me off?" He's not sure that's quite right, but he expects she understands what he's getting at.

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

"That's not exactly it," Veronica said, stifling her laughter. "Bump you off." The other one wasn't it by a long shot. "And I guess that's just a chance you'll have to take. I mean, I can see how I might be terrifying. All two feet of me." Somehow, the fact that he towered over her was more apparent now that they were outdoors. She was used to it from Jim, even from Sam, though she hadn't talked to him in ages, but it was always a little strange.

[plantfood]

"Sometimes the most terrifying forces come in the smallest packages," Mathias answers sagely and he could be serious but for the small quirk at one corner of his mouth. It's true in a way, although he'd never say it quite like that, but it's a lesson he learned with the vines.

They're not here, though. He knows this.

"Besides, you must be at least three feel tall," he adds. "If not more."

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

"Alright," Veronica allowed with a sigh, "maybe three foot five." The heat aside, it had been a good week for the most part, this included. It seemed like she was always arguing with someone these days. Even for her, that got tiring once in a while. Light banter was a pleasant change.

Under the cover of the trees, the shade provided some relief from the heat, but the humidity only seemed the worse. She stopped a moment, spotting a long branch on the ground and bending to pick it up - a little shorter than she would have liked, but sturdy. We have that in common. "If you look around some as we get further in," she said, "you'll see some of the animals from around here. It's like living in a zoo. And that's just my ex-boyfriends."

[plantfood]

"Ouch," Mathias says with a laugh and he's thankful for the distraction. If they can keep this up, this light talk, he thinks he'll be able to make it through the jungle without much of a problem.

"You banish your ex-boyfriends to the jungle?" he asks, looking around as if he expects to see one of them popping out at any point. "They must have really been bad boyfriends for you to send them out here." He won't say it, but he can understand that desire, remembering just how awful things had been for awhile after his last breakup. "Are there monkeys out here?"

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

"Only kind I have, apparently," Veronica said wryly. That wasn't true, strictly speaking, since it hadn't really been Duncan's fault or Leo's that things hadn't worked out, but there was no reason to spoil a punchline with the truth. Talk of monkeys was distraction enough for her, though, and she glanced around with a laugh. "There are definitely monkeys." She knew that firsthand, after the way Arya had made her catch them for training. It was a point of pride, but a slightly embarrassing one.

[plantfood]

Mathias goes silent at that for a moment, watching the trees as they walk, hoping to catch a glimpse of something that he'd been looking for back home. When it doesn't happen immediately, he tells himself that they'll see one before the day is done, then looks over at Veronica again with a faintly embarrassed smile.

"I wanted to see some monkeys in Mexico," he admits, remembering his conversation with Jeff. "We didn't see any on the way to the ruins and I remember being sort of... disappointed."

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

From what Veronica could tell, calling that trip 'disappointing' would have been putting it mildly. "Then monkeys, you shall have," she promised, blinking rapidly, mock-serious. The little bastards were fast, but they were around, and she would just have to make sure that she was right. That wasn't ever too difficult. Besides, after she'd been on the island this long, she knew it well.

"Where I lived, we were right near the border," she said, "pretty close anyway. I don't remember monkeys ever being a real motivating factor when people I knew went down there."

[plantfood]

Mathias nods his acknowledgment of that, his expression still mostly neutral. "It was a disappointment to my parents, but I never was much for the illegal drugs or prostitution," he admits, still scanning the trees, waiting to see a flash of movement, a tail, anything.

"I was always about the monkeys and the art galleries and such," he continues, a smile finally turning up his mouth again. "And the beer, of course."

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

"Why, naturally," Veronica said, glancing over with a wry smile. After the boys she'd been to high school with, the idea of someone going down to Mexico for ruins, wildlife and art was novel almost to the point of being unbelievable. "Monkeys and beer just compliment each other -" She stopped both her words and her feet then, reaching out to touch his arm with her free hand before pointing up, high into the treeline. Sometimes she wished she could just turn off the monkey detection equipment now seemingly ingrained in her brain, but right now, it seemed like a decent thing. "No beer or art, but by god, we have monkeys."

[plantfood]

When Veronica touches him, Mathias feels that familiar spark of warmth, the enjoyment he gets from even the most fleeting touch and he almost doesn't look up immediately. There are monkeys, however, and he lifts his gaze to the trees, a soft laugh escaping.

"We have monkeys," he agrees quietly, watching them intently. One flicks its tail and Mathias tilts his head, studying the movements, the way it swings from branch to branch. After so much anticipation, he suspected he'd be disappointed, but that's not the case. "I guess I did see some, after all."

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

With as many as she'd seen and caught in the last three years, Veronica had grown accustomed to the presence of the monkeys. The calls of jungle birds were as familiar to her now as those of any sparrow or seagull in Neptune, just as she'd gotten used to the howling of direwolves if she walked out late at night. It had been such a long time since she'd been anywhere but the island. If she'd wound up home today, she wondered if she'd show the same intense curiosity in the goings-on of the world she'd grown up in as Mathias displayed here.

Probably not, she figured. If Pam was anything to judge by, she'd just forget it all.

"You'll see a lot more of them from here on out," she said wryly. "Especially if you keep leaving the Compound. The monkeys will not come to you."

[plantfood]

"Which is unfortunate news if I've ever heard some," Mathias answers absently, still watching their movements in the trees. If he'd been alone, he probably would have stood there for hours, watching the animals do whatever they did before finally moving on, but he doubts that Veronica wants to stand here all afternoon and stare at monkeys. Besides, they're out here for the dinosaurs.

"What other sorts of animals are out here?" he asks, turning his attention back to Veronica before he begins to walk again. "Anything big besides the dinosaurs?"

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

"Aside from the dinosaurs," Veronica said wryly, "the biggest thing out here's probably the direwolves. And unless you mess with the Stark family, they generally won't mess with you. And the boars can get pretty nasty, but mostly it's a lot of birds and monkeys." She left tangling with the boars to people who enjoyed that kind of thing. She contributed to the community in other ways.

Playing tour guide wasn't usually one of them - not, at least, to this extent. She generally got people through the whirlwind of the meet and greet, along with an introduction to the Compound. After that, she just wasn't suited to it. She was too caustic even for the first much of the time. Now she was out in the middle of the jungle with a man she hardly knew, and her standards for acidic quips seemed to have faltered and failed. She was seriously losing her touch.

[plantfood]

For just a second longer, Mathias looks at the monkeys, then smiles, genuine and relaxed. This is a lesson, he thinks, in remembering that even when things seem completely lost, they may still be possible.

"I met the man who looks like me," he says, remembering that Veronica had mentioned him looking like someone on their first meeting. "Max is his name, yeah? We met at the party." Mathias had been quite drunk, but mostly as a means to actually leave the Compound and he doesn't think he was drunk enough to imagine a twin. "I thought he was my brother at first," he admits with a wry smile. "It was... not pleasant."

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

For a second, Veronica wondered if Mathias had disliked his brother or if they'd fought, and then the memory came back to her and she winced. Even having had Lilly back for a while, she knew full well how much it could suck to see someone who looked like a lost loved one. Karen Smith had been nothing like Lilly, but while she'd seemed nice enough, her presence had always left Veronica uncomfortable at best.

"Seeing people who shouldn't be there usually isn't," she said wryly. Lilly had been all kinds of places she shouldn't have been for a while after her death. Once she'd saved Veronica's life. "He has a sister here who might think the same thing about you. Although, I don't know, I think the accent might give you away."

[plantfood]

"He gave me a cigarette," Mathias remembers in amusement. "I don't smoke."

At the mention of Max's sister, he nods, his smile fading as he thinks of her and what that may feel like. If someone were to arrive looking exactly like Henrich or Stacy or even Jeff, he's not sure what he would feel. Especially to know that they weren't those people, only the same face.

"At least her brother is here," he decides. "I think it would be more... uh... more difficult, yeah? If I were here and he was not. It's harder to see the face and know they will never know you like the person you want them to be."

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

Something in Veronica's expression darkened, though she struggled against it, brow lifting. He couldn't possibly have known how those words might strike a nerve in her, but there it was all the same, a rush of something to fight off. It had to stay under the surface. She wouldn't talk about Pam with Jim or River; she certainly wouldn't talk to someone she hardly knew about her.

"At least she wouldn't expect you to remember things," she said evenly. "Lucy's tough, but... yeah, that would've been rough on her. Luckily, that's not the case, she just gets to see double."

[plantfood]

There's something there, something he's said and although he won't push or ask what he's done wrong, he knows it's something. Looking over at Veronica, his own brows drawn together in a faint frown, Mathias reaches over and touches her arm briefly.

"I'm sorry," he says and leaves it at that, then withdraws his fingers. Sometimes he forgets about the burns, doesn't think about what they might feel like against her arm.

"Are there people who have more than one?" he asks, then gestures as he tries to find the word. "More than one... double? Or twin?" Both words imply pairs, but he isn't sure what other word might work for what he means to say.

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

The touch and the hint of consolation were surprising, but not as much as the fact that he didn't ask. Though she wouldn't have answered, Veronica expected the acknowledgment to be followed with some kind of question. But then, interrogation was her own strong point. She forgot sometimes that it wasn't everyone else's, that other people could let things go.

"Some people," she said, nodding. "Not everyone has one at all, and mostly people seem to be in twos or threes, but sometimes there are more." She'd never had one herself, a fact she relished, but the clones or whatever they were didn't bother her so much anymore. It was the return appearances that would drive her crazy.

[plantfood]

"Huh," Mathias murmurs, thinking about what that would be like. He tries to imagine a world with multiple versions of his own face and can't help but smile a little, picturing an army of men who look exactly like him.

"For the most part, I would expect that one of us is more than enough," he says after he considers it. "And I suppose the fact that there are more than just pairs ruins the theory that we all have a twin somewhere in the world." He's never really believed that one, but in this case he thinks he could have been persuaded.

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

"That's assuming people 'round here only come from one world," she said wryly. Slipping her pack off, she pulled out the water she'd brought. With the heat being what it was, she didn't want to forget and dehydrate herself. "With my luck, three girls with my face'll show up all in the same week."