Back-to-back shifts were a pain in the *ss. Jack was just finishing at Xavier's for the day, and she'd come straight there from Inferno shortly prior. She felt like death, and even that was putting it lightly. She felt like Death Incarnate.

Her phone buzzed as she approached the outer gate which, courtesy of security guard at the booth, swung open to allow her exit. Jack gave an appreciative wave with one hand as she fished into her pocket with the other. The phone's screen revealed that it was an alarm.

<<Get milk and laundry detergent on the way home!>> it advised the prawn.

Crap. All she wanted to do was sleep. But, if she put it off longer, she'd probably forget. Jack begrudgingly crossed the street and bore right, in the direction of a store where she could pick-up the aforementioned items. What an absolute drag. She'd get that stuff taken care of, and then she'd go home and get some much needed sleep.

Money was money. That's what it came down to. Even at two-hundred and sixty years old (well, technically eight days), she was still plagued by the fact that the world didn't turn unless there was some cash in your pocket. She was late on rent, and she still owed the Hardys their cut to keep their mouths shut.

So, she turned to the one thing that she could almost always sometimes count on in her life: investigative work.

Charlie had gotten a call from a worried family member (or maybe it had been a friend? Details were blurry pre-death) asking her to investigate someone that they had been very close to a number of years ago. Only recently had she learned the name that the woman had switched to when she ran away from her old life. There had been some detail that had made Charlie initially wary about taking the case, but she couldn't remember what it was anymore. She had forgotten to take any notes on it.

Usually, her notes were impossibly detailed and all-encompassing. Apparently not that time around. There seemed to be gaping holes in her research, which put her back a few days in the investigation. That, combined with a death partway through and a couple of late nights, meant that she was only just getting to find the woman.

Eventually, Charlie was able to dig up the address of the places where she worked. It only took her an hour longer to figure out her hours. After that, she was golden. She stood across the street from some school, her camera on a string around her neck, ready to be raised to her eye at a moment's notice. She was waiting for the woman to appear. If her memory decided to be kind to her, then Charlie knew that she would be able to recognise her when she saw her. If not, then she would have to do a bit more searching.

She waited for a good, long while until something caught her eye. Something... rainbow.

"What the f**k?" Charlie swore loudly, her face twisted slightly as she looked at the giant prawn. It hadn't seemed to have hit her just how blatantly rude and bigoted she was being in that moment.

She had just remembered why she hadn't wanted to take the case. She was supposed to be stalking a giant talking mantis shrimp.

Fortunately for the young private investigator, whose presence was still unbenounced to the massive prawn, Jack's overall exhaustion made her significantly less observant. Not that swearing on the streets of New York City warranted a reaction. An exclamation such as the one the young P.I. murmured was even among the more mild things one might here as they traversed the grid of streets.

For an average person, the walk to Target was approximately twenty-five minutes long. Given Jack's long strides and determination to quickly finish the errand and get home and go to bed, said trip might take twenty minutes, tops.

The prawn trudged past residential brownstones, her begrudging strides dominating the gradual hill with ease. Damn her need for milk and laundry detergent, damn her nagging cell phone, and damn this goddamn hill. A pair of old ladies, who each had a tiny, toy-sized dog at the end of two respective leashes, shied to the side of the sidewalk, giving audible gasps at the sight of the approaching shrimp. Yeah, yeah, move aside, I've got places to be.

In the distance, subway cars rattled on an above-ground track, beckoning to the prawn. This above-ground track would mark the first turn in her trip, and only spurred Jack to keep her current, brisk pace.

Charlie's usual string of bad luck didn't seem to be following her around that day. Despite her untimely outburst, things were still on track. The, uh... the woman hadn't seemed to have noticed that anything was amiss. Granted, it was New York City, and there was a lot of swearing in the streets, so perhaps she had simply thought that it was just a random passerby and hadn't paid any attention.

Either that or she was slow as well as a shrimp.

Dressed in her usual attire of a leather jacket and dark clothes, Charlie pursued her target, making mental notes about the case and taking as many pictures as she could at the brisk pace. If nothing else, Jacquelyn Dyer knew how to keep up a pace.

People crowded the streets, old women with tiny dogs, children, adults, larger dogs. It seemed as though all of New York had spilt onto the streets in order to keep Charlie as far apart from Jack as they possibly could.

Luckily, she kept a fairly straight route. There were no crazy turns or twists; she clearly didn't know that she was being followed. 

Eventually, she did turn to an above-ground subway station. Charlie followed, having essentially caught up, but stayed far enough away that she could blend into the crowd. Nothing too exciting was happening in that moment, anyway. Charlie was just hoping that Jack was going home so she could get a few pictures of it. That was what she'd been hired to do, after all. Figure out some details about her and take some pictures. Thankfully, there was nothing too creepy involved.

From her perspective, anyway.

Contrary to appearances, Jack was not actually taking the subway. Target was a few blocks down, on the other side of the bridge, and there'd be no point in it. For the must part, the bridge was unpopular to pedestrians because of the sidewalk's proximity to the roaring three lanes of traffic each direction. Jack, however, was undeterred. It was the most direct route.

Jack came to the corner just prior to the first left turn, just prior to the above-ground subway line. The crosswalk light was red, as traffic was zipping by at fairly high speeds, so Jack came to a halt. Today's ensemble was a pair of cargo pants and a black, fitted tank top. Her messenger bag was swung over her shoulder.

The prawn waited at the corner, rocking from her toes to her heels. The sooner the light changed, the better.

(ooc: feel free to write them crossing the street, having jack notice-- or not notice-- charlie... maybe exchanging glances? Wherever the post moves you!)

Despite what it looked like, Jack was not heading to the subway. That was both a positive and a negative result. On one hand, it was much easier to follow someone in a crowd of people than in a stationary position in a moving vehicle, but it also meant that she now had no idea where she was going.

The blonde grumbled under her breath and sped up her walking, careful not to trip or get too far behind. If she had known that she would be doing this much street pursuing, she would have chosen some footwear without heels. Hindsight was twenty-twenty.

Soon enough, they reached a stoplight and had to wait. It was perfect. There was a large enough group of people that Charlie could easily get lost in them, but she would still have to be careful not to get too close. She hung at the back of the group, keeping her eyes moving from the lights to the tall, rainbow woman she was trailing. 

The lights changed, and they were free to walk. Charlie made the mistake of walking at her usual pace, not thinking that the people around her would choose to walk slower than her. Before she knew it, she was almost walking next to her target.

Charlie could feel her heart start to beat faster. That wasn't supposed to happen. If Jack looked behind her, she would lose any anonymity that she'd had before, and there would be no getting it back. She looked up, only to find that they were making eye contact.

What were you supposed to do when your car was skidding? Lean into the skid. 

Rather than looking away awkwardly, Charlie winked. 

A small gathering of people accumulated at the corner, awaiting the change of the light. Finally, the stoplight blinked from green, to yellow, to red, and the wave of pedestrians surged forward. Jack kept to the front, where she began, expecting to leave most of the pedestrians in the dust (despite the fact that she'd slowed her pace, now that she'd surmounted the only hill on her walk).

Someone broke free of the pack, though-- what more, they were really close to Jack, which warranted a sidelong glance. If the prawn wasn't careful, she might've bumped them in their face with her spiny elbow. Jack gave them an appraising look-- Fast walker-- and they looked back at her, their face slackening slightly.

Then, they winked at her. The prawn made a facial expression comparable to wincing. What the f**k? And looked away. Once on the other side of the street, she cast another curious look at the lady. Leather jacket, dark ensemble. There was a momentarily reunion of glances, and the prawn shrugged her shoulder, turning her back to the young woman. She punched the crosswalk button once again, for the adjoining signal, and waited.

After some anxious foot-tapping the signal changed, and the prawn strode across. The bridge would gradually rise-up over the last three blocks of city before sweeping over the Harlem River. Just past the bridge, there'd be one more right turn, down a strip of road for the commercial district, and she'd be at her destination.

The reverberations in the walkway shifted as the bridge rose up from the ground. Cars thundered closer, roaring towards the prawns back before charging past, insatiable beasts. Jack exhaled sharply, keeping the clipped pace, and casting the occasional, furtive glances backwards.

She had certainly freaked the woman out a little, but she hadn’t scared her enough for her to do anything. That was probably actually the worst case scenario. Charlie could see then that it would have been far better to just follow her by other means. She really needed to invest in a car.

It was too late to reminisce about that, though. All she could do at that point was follow her target on foot. Preferably not so closely.

They crossed the street, and Jack stood still, waiting for the other signal. Charlie walked straight forward, hoping to throw her off the track. If she didn’t think that she was following her, then Charlie would just be the blonde woman that had winked at her in the street. Nothing more. If all went right, she could catch up in a block or two.

She jaywalked about halfway down the street and then turned back down the way that Jack was going, hoping to catch a glimpse of the rainbow… uh… shell?

The prawn strode walked over the bridge, pausing a moment at the apex to look out over the water. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but she had a knot in the base of her stomach. Maybe it was just because that blonde lady had winked at her—any form of casual friendliness made her stomach churn. While Jack’s body was pointed towards the river, her eyes cut sideways towards the sidewalk.

She did not spot the blonde. Jack inhaled deeply, and continued the downhill trek towards the opposite side of the window. A few car horns blared up ahead, but these were common sounds of the city. As she descend down the bridge, the crowds began to thicken. She was approaching a commercial area, where pedestrian traffic was heavier. Jack was half-tempted to duck into a store, but she chastised herself for being paranoid. Really, Jack? Really?? A girl winks at you and you’re considering hiding?!

Jack hunched her shoulders and clicked in frustration, cutting through the crowd fluidly. A few minutes more, and she’d be at Target. She could get her sh** and go home.

Her last mistake had been following too closely behind the woman. She was not going to do the same thing twice, that was for sure. As she trailed the rainbow form, she made sure to stay far enough back that she could blend in with the crowds and duck behind objects if she needed to.

Despite the fact that she was far away from the woman, her camera was able to make up the distance. The long-range camera was able to capture perfectly still photos with incredible detail. It had cost her a pretty penny, but it was well worth it. She couldn't even count how many times it had saved a case of hers.

She walked carefully along the pavement, making sure not to get too close or seem too conspicuous. From what she could tell, they were heading to Target. That was actually great. Maybe she could get some of her errands done when she was done.

((OOC: Feel free to manhandle!))

Jack joined the throngs of people on the boulevard that led towards Target. There were a few, smaller businesses along the way… a sandwich shop, a cellphone carrier, and a video game store, to name a few. The prawn took the opportunity to pantomime looking at the store signs above the store fronts, as if trying to find her way to a specific business and checking to see if any of these were the one. In that gesture, she flicked her gaze back up the street, back in the direction from whence she’d just come. Her lavender gaze skimmed the crowd.

You’re being paranoid, dumba**. A glint caught her eye, her gaze was pulled towards a familiar blond head, and a rather… expensive-looking camera. Eyes thinned. Sometimes paranoia's a good thing. Her stomach clenched again. Despite the leaden feeling of exhaustion, the prawn turned and broke into a run. Some of the pedestrians gave astonished shouts, giving the prawn a wide berth.

She had to be sure. You couldn’t just manhandle someone for having a camera. She had to be sure. Jack charged down the straightaway and, just before the corner where one would cross to go to target, she veered right. She had to be sure. The pupils of her eyes had contracted to thin slits, and they swiveled about in a panic before fixating on a narrow alley behind the buildings. It wasn’t large enough for motorized vehicles, but just big enough to meet ADA compliance. There were probably back doors there, garbage cans, crates… perfect. The prawn tucked herself into the alley and waited, quieting her ragged breathing.

You’re just being paranoid, Jack, you’re just being paranoid.

Sleep deprivation hadn’t led her to have delusions of being stalked before, though. The prawn crouched low, and waited—this would ascertain it—if the girl followed, she was really following.

Charlie hung her head backwards and let out a noise of annoyance. The woman had changed course, which meant that she was probably on to her. The winking had been a stupid idea. Now, she had no choice but to follow her or wait until everything died down and then try again.

Charlie wasn’t exactly the patient type.

Heeled black boots clicked along the pavement as she tracked the steps of the prawn from a ways back. She had to be very careful; too close and it would become blatantly obvious that she was following her, too far and the trail would go cold. It was a delicate balance, one that Charlie hadn’t been all that great at maintaining of late.

She remembered vaguely that she had some sort of training or at least practice with stalking people, but she couldn’t remember that life at all. Everything she was doing was based on what she did remember from other lives and her intuition. Unfortunately, neither of those were entirely reliable.

The woman veered right, and so did she. Once she rounded the corner, though, Jack was gone. There was absolutely no sign the rainbow mutant. With a sigh, Charlie stood in front of an alleyway and spun around without avail. She would have to try again later after all. Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

The blonde was standing in the mouth of the alleyway, camera out and eyes narrowed as she focused on the street in front of her.

The prawn remained on her haunches, focusing on her breathing. It was ragged from sprinting, and not conducive to going unnoticed. Jack took a few steading breaths until her breathing settled. Now if she could just… get her heart to stop hammering. Reassurances ran on a track in her mind—she was just being paranoid. That girl would go on her way, snapping pictures of the shopping district, and Jack would feel like the sleep-deprived dumb*ss that she was acting like.

Brisk footsteps that clicked with feminine heels drew closer, and the prawn froze, listening closely. They stopped at the mouth of the alley. Click. Click-click-click. Jack’s antennae lay flat against her head. Timidly she raised her head, lavender eyes spying the back and shoulders of the young blonde from the intersection on the other side of the bridge, complete with fancy camera. Jack could hear her heart hammering in her ears. What should she do? Wait for her to leave? No… the real question was, what was on that camera.

The prawn rose noiselessly off of her haunches, surveying the smaller woman. It was for her own good, honestly.

With a well-practiced agility, the prawn grabbed at the scruff of the woman’s jacket and shirt and yanked her into the alleyway. Her other primary hand wrapped around the woman’s mouth, expecting some sort of outcry.

“Asternoon,” the prawn grumbled by way of greeting. Jack took a moment to readjust her hold, switching from the collars of the woman’s tops, to an arm bar, “Iss you don’t want trou’le, do as I say. Can-era. Now.”

This implied that the blonde had a choice. She didn’t. The prawn would take it by-force, and be less likely to leave it in-tact, if she didn’t volunteer it.

Without a target, Charlie was left without anything else to do. She was standing all alone on the street, almost waiting for something to happen to her...

"What the fu-" Charlie shouted as she felt herself being yanked away. Typically, she wasn't yanked off of her feet without some kind of warning, least of all to some sketchy alleyway. There were so many things that were just not alright with that situation. So many. Her mouth was being covered by some sort of hand thing that prevented her from making any noise.

Charlie flailed against her captor, but it really wasn't any use. She wasn't all that strong, and there wasn't much she could do against the prawn. Yes, that was right. She was being abducted by her target, of all people. She supposed that, in a way, it made sense, since she hadn't exactly done a stellar job of the stalking bit, but still. It was a little much.

>>“Iss you don’t want trou’le, do as I say. Can-era. Now.”

Hand over her camera? At least, that was what she had interpreted. 

No, that was not going to fly. There were few possessions in the world that Charlie actually cared about, but her camera was one of them. It had taken her a while to save up for it, to pick it out, then get used to how it worked. She'd had it for almost three years, which was a long time for her to have much of anything. She tended to lose things. Not that camera, though.

"Go f**k yourself," she spat at Jack, not caring for her own personal wellbeing. It didn't matter all that much, anyway; so long as her camera was alright. It was worth more than she was.

Apparently, this plucky young lady had issues following directions. It was not open to debate. Working at a nightclub had made Jack impervious to such sentiments, however

“Your call,” the prawn said. That was all the forewarning the blonde received before the prawn closed her hand around the camera and yanked it up over her head. Clearing her throat, the prawn released her hold on the woman.

“Relax, just wanna has a look, dear,” the prawn rumbled, the word "dear" uttered with disingenuous vehemence, “Iss you aren’t a d***, I won’t wreck it.”

Don’t be a d***, which entailed—not running, not yelling, and not physically attacking said prawn. One wrong move, and Jack would gladly clench her fist, possibly damaging the camera beyond repair.

After some minor fiddling around, Jack figured-out how to access the recently-taken pictures, a number of which were focused on her, albeit through the hustle and bustle of a crowd. *scroll, delete* *scroll, delete*

“Goodness, you are surr-ow,” the prawn commented, “Dat’s a twenty nin-ute walk and you has how nanny shots uzz nee?”

*scroll, delete* *scroll, delete* *scroll, delete*

A shrewd lavender gaze fastened on the smaller woman, her pupils constricted to vicious slits.

“Did sun-one send you?”

Retired gang-members did not take kindly to being tailed.