If he had known they’d be there, he would have tried harder to land somewhere else.
He barely gets four steps before they start shooting at him.
Thank god they all miss, or this would be even harder to explain to the few civilians on the streets later.
He contemplates jumping again -- this isn’t a vital stop, he can come back later -- but that will only prolong the inevitable. He’ll have to stay around, figure something out to get them off his ass and onto someone else’s.
When he starts running, it takes him a few steps to get used to human anatomy again. And this particular human’s impractical footwear.
Gods, stilettos are quite possibly the worst shoe ever created. Once he decides he’s at a safe enough distance, he stops running and kicks the heels off. Thankfully, this human has their hair either tied back or cut short enough that none falls into his eyes. One less impracticality.
Now it’s just deciding how to get away from them for a little while. Just long enough to make a plan to keep them off him for the rest of their lives.
A look around his current surroundings shows he’s in an upper class neighborhood, a mix of large houses and small, well-kept apartment buildings. Not a gated community, no neighborhood watch, but plenty of security cameras on -- and likely in -- nearly every building.
The building in front of him -- one of the apartment buildings, three stories tall -- has a fire escape going up the side, though the ladder that would touch down to the ground he’s standing on isn’t down. It’ll require a bit of a jump, but he can do that.
With a short running start, he does just that and pulls himself up onto the landing. He doesn’t look at the alley’s opening. There are no more gunshots, and he doesn’t hear footsteps coming up on him.
Not that that means he’s safe.
Sighing quietly, he makes his way up to the third floor.
The window leading out is locked, but that’s easy enough to fix. It doesn’t creak when he inches it open, and he slips in with just the slightest thump when his bare feet hit the wooden floor.
It’s dark, but the apartment is clearly lived in. It’s a cute little place, he thinks.
He’s nearly halfway to the door when he’s grabbed and shoved against a wall. The lights are still off, and he doesn’t really want to think about how this person was able to sneak up on him. And, oh, that is a weapon in their hand.
“Hello there,” he says, then blinks. He’d known he was in a woman’s form, but wow. What a voice.
“Looking for something?” the person asks. Their voice is low, in both volume and tone. Male, and likely built like a brick wall.
“Just the exit. Got in a spot of trouble, just trying to get away from it.” Dear gods, does this woman have any friends? How do they listen to her all day?
The light flickers on, and then there’s a woman barely in his line of sight. He gets a glimpse of brown skin and a white t-shirt before she moves.
“Sani, what -- oh, Christ!” She takes a half-step back, but doesn’t appear very frightened. “Wait a sec.” She waves her hand and the person holding him -- Sani -- loosens his hold. “What are you?”
He says nothing for a long moment. “That question usually starts with ‘who’.”
She nods. “I’m not asking who you are, though. I’m asking what you are.”
There’s another moment where he says nothing. He knows there are a couple places on Earth where the supernatural live in peace among humans, but he hadn’t meant to land in one of them.
Besides, to his knowledge, there isn’t really a name for him.
“I’m not sure. Far as I know, I’m the only thing like me,” he finally says.
She nods again. “That would explain why I’m not familiar with you.” She steps closer, dark brown eyes narrowing slightly. “You’re old, though. And that is not your body.”
He shakes his head. “You can tell a lot. What are you?”
Smiling, she shrugs. “It wouldn’t be very smart of me to tell you. I don’t know what you’re capable of, after all.” Her head tilts, very slightly, to the right, and dark hair falls over her shoulder in soft waves. “What are you doing here?”
“I already told Sani, here,” he jerks his head slightly to indicate the man still holding him, “I ran into trouble, was just trying to get out of it for a few minutes to make a plan.”
“Is this trouble liable to follow you into our apartment?”
He shrugs. “If anyone saw me on the fire escape or slipping through your window.”
“Great,” Sani says, finally releasing him. He moves over to the window and closes it before leaning against the wall with his arms folded.
Now that he can move, he sees the weapon he’d felt Sani holding is a knife. “Not a gun person?” he asks, nodding at it.
Sani shrugs. “Too loud. Easier to get away with things when there aren’t ten people claiming to have heard a gunshot.”
The woman moves between them, stepping into a pair of jeans. “Priorities, people. Please.” She turns to him. “What’s your name, by the by?”
“Oren,” he says. “Yours?”
“Liseli. And he/him, then?”
He shrugs. “Whatever you want. I’m not picky.”
She narrows her eyes at him again, then walks over to the door, where there are about four pairs of shoes lined up against the wall. She’s grumbling something, but he doesn’t quite manage to catch it.
Sani chuckles quietly, following her lead and stepping into a pair of shoes. “I promise you haven’t lost any of your charms, Lis.”
“You can hardly say that. You’re worse than Luke.”
Oren feels like he’s missing something. “What exactly is happening?”
Now there’s a snort. “I believe Oren is worse than Luke and I combined,” Sani says, then turns to him. “She’s just pouting because she was standing right in front of you barely dressed and you didn’t even blink.”
And now he’s confused. “I thought women hated people doing that?” He turns to Liseli. “You’re beautiful. I just don’t know you. At all.”
She grins. “Ah. Demi. Okay, I can work with that.” She waves a hand slightly. “And yeah, we hate creepy people staring at us, but.” She shrugs. “Sex fuels me, a bit.”
“Nah. Close, though.” She leads the way out of the apartment, but lets Oren take the lead once they’re all outside. “We’ve got a place to go, right, Sani?”
“We do. Take a left up here.”
Oren nods. “Thank you, by the way. You could have just kicked me out.”
“No we couldn’t,” Liseli says. “Just walk.”
