OPEN | the waves still crash on the bonfire ash.

[evite]

who: skye & you, hopefully.
what: getting settled? getting hype? what's soon to be the usual, probably.
when: throughout the month of may.
where: city-wide!
warnings: none yet.

✈ in memoriam.

( she doesn't want to mourn. not like this, anyway. skye has too many guilt-laden memories that hang off her ribs to let them free into this city yet; she's half-convinced she'd light too many lanterns and burn the place down. so, instead, she opts to observe. she finds a quiet place off to the side where she can draw 8-bit patterns across the lantern someone had so helpfully placed in her hands and thinks back to all the people she'd left behind.

she draws a pattern on one side, jagged lines that don't quite meet so much as attempt to cross each other out, and hides a name in the blur of ink in the middle. trip, four letters, but they're hard enough to write as it is. another side depicts the layout of the bus, a messy blue print from an untrained hand. the lines are thickest for a square off to the side; not her bedroom, but the sparring room. a place that left her mourning for something that had never been real in the first place. ward. what could have been.

at one point, someone approaches her, lighter in hand and ready to help lift the lantern up into the sky. there's a beat of hesitation before she shakes her head, fingers clutching reflexively over the paper between them. )

No, I think I'm going to keep it, actually.

( is that weird? it might be weird. )

Is that okay?

✈ in officio.

( they offer her a job. well, to be more specific, they tell her to find her own work, which seems a lot more real than anything else thus far. she's not used to having things handed to her, anyway; the idea of having to find her own work seems much more skye than playing cheerful worker drone and just going where they tell her to.

not that she really has to try, anyway. the city seems more than happy to request software codes — mostly inconsequential things, housekeeping projects that likely are a little too blase for anyone they might keep on staff full time, but skye doesn't mind. it puts money in her pocket and boredom on the back burner, the former of which she prefers and the latter of which is probably better for the city.

as a freelancer, though, skye doesn't have an office. there's no official place for someone to meet her or come calling; ultimately, it means that everywhere becomes her office. depending on the day or her mood, she calls a few places "home away from home" — the coffee shops, of course, with their comfortable seating and plentiful selection of baked goods; the local university's library, naturally, and its expansive collection of quiet working tables and reference materials; and in a twist, the local gym, where skye can scout for someone she might want to approach after hours, in the hopes of filling up all that precious free time.

she thinks may might even be proud of her for that. sparring voluntarily? who would have thought. not skye, that's for damn certain, but she's trying new things. like talking to people, for one. such as: )

Hey — ( hey you, no, that's rude. ) — listen, can you hand me that?

( "it" could be anything. a lamp, a book, a muffin someone dropped on the ground. go crazy. get weird. make things happen. )

✈ wildcard.

( y'all probably know the drill. if you want something particular, please shoot me a pm and let me know! ♥ )

Comments

[evite]

( so the friendly girl with a penchant for muffins got an office. interesting. apparently, it was just skye that was being sent into the wild blue yonder with nothing more than a generic laptop and her wits. that sounded about right for her... but it did make her wonder who in the administration she might have pissed off upon arrival. )

The network? ( she wasn't sure if it was in reference to the whole retro myspace vibe on the phone she'd been given, or a news network. either way, it was probably more interesting than being a permanent floater. ) What kind of network do you work for?

( skye can't help but itch to want to do something — typing is practically like breathing for her more often than not — but it's an attempt to not be totally rude on the first date meeting that prevents her from fishing out said phone or laptop. instead, her fingers drum idly along any surface they can reach: the sides of her coffee cup, the lining of her jeans, and the edges of the table are all fair game. )

Wait, does your job have free coffee?

( because even if it's shitty, she could be down for that. pinch a penny where she can. )

[11calls]

I'm an investigative reporter. It was what I did back home, only in a different medium.

[Alex just shrugs a bit, because it's not all that different going from working in podcasting to what she was doing now. Just a change of format and not talking so much. She could do it of course, and was good at her job, it was just different from having her Nic and her own little army of interns to help with the researching.

And of course to make her coffee how she liked it. Or that it tasted like coffee at all really. The interns here just didn't get it, so Alex had decamped. Besides, she worked better in chaos anyway. Alex Reagan thrived on chaos much to the chagrin of people around her, but it helped with the whirling thought patterns in her brain. After a second she answered the question:]

If you can call the tepid pale brown water that they make in the machine coffee. I've tried to fix it a hundred times since I've been here, and no dice. It's weird the Riverview News Service is the only place where journalists work... Well, just me at the moment, but that has crappy coffee. Even the school paper and radio was better.

What do you do?

[evite]

I get that. You can't have shitty caffeine, it ruins the whole day.

( investigative reporter. skye has to wonder what there might be to investigate in a place like this. beyond the day-to-day, the administration seemed to have things under control... and under tight wraps, too, given the somewhat vague answers they'd given to some of her questions. while some of the things skye had asked had been answered almost too willingly, she'd been given answers that felt more like half-truths to others.

things like: why her? why now? why were any of them here, and why had some been here longer than others? what answers did this world hope to find in them, and why couldn't they go home at will? perhaps alex's role might be helpful in getting some of those questions answered. but for now, at least, she might be useful in finding some steady work. )

I, uh. Kind of float, I guess. I code software, program existing hardware, basically all the hacker geek shit people need but don't necessarily have a full time position for at any one place. ( the city had been nice enough to print her business cards, so skye fishes one from her bag to show. there's a business email, of course, but that's not really the point; with a pen, she scrawls out her personal number at the bottom before sliding it over towards the other side of the table. ) In case you need something encrypted for all that investigating.

As payback for the baked goods, you know.

[11calls]

[Honestly, there wasn’t all that much for Alex to investigate. Or at least there hadn’t been much. At current, she was working on trying to track down who it was that had ended up releasing the plague that had swept through the city, or at the very least trying to figure out the where it had been launched piece. But before that there had only been little things that were mostly reports on the things that were happening with the government and the like. Nothing like what she was used to doing at home, which of course meant that Alex had been using her free time (and work time) in a way that she would deem wisely: she was using the vast knowledge of people around town in order to find things that could be better put to use back home.

Not that she was going to tell most people about that. But Alex could already tell that Skye wasn’t most people.

Her attention laser focused for a moment on the fact that the other woman admitted so easily that she was a hacker. Alex herself didn’t have a hacker on staff (or at least on the payroll using bitcoin) but her best friend Nic did, and she knew how useful knowing one could be. When Skye handed her the business card, it was easy for Alex to type the woman’s number directly in her phone before she slipped one of her own from her holder and did the same, handing it to the other woman.]

I definitely will probably have use for your skills at some point. And if nothing else, have you spoken to Tony Stark? The older one. He’s the one you want to speak to about tech here, I think. Maybe he could be a good network to have.

[evite]

( skye doesn't work with tony stark — that'd be like saying that the postman works with the president — but she didn't live under a rock. she knows full well exactly who helped create the empire that is stark industries back home. finding out that he's here, though? that's a bit of a surprise.

as is the "older one" part. that earns a slight splutter of coffee and baked goods, her throat suddenly incapable of appropriately passing foodstuffs in the wake of such a statement. when she finally manages to stop coughing, skye blurts: )

Wait — the older one? As in, there are multiple Tony Starks?

( how has this place managed to not get literally blown up? )

[11calls]

[With the question, Alex just nods quickly, with a smile on her face before she takes another sip of her coffee. When it's done, Alex answers the question with a little shrug.]

Yep, two of multiple people actually. Two Tony Starks, two Steve Rogers, two Lokis... It has something to do with the whole multiverse theory, I think. There are even people who look like they have the same face at various points in time, even though they come from the same universe. It can be a little bit confusing. Or a lot confusing actually.

[Alex Reagan master of the understatement.]

But if it helps any, I've not see anyone with your face. Or mine, honestly.

[evite]

( a low whistle escapes from between her lips as her fingertips smooth out worrying circles around the rim of her coffee cup. she's not entirely certain what she'd expected, coming here, but hearing somebody rattle off the multiverse theory like that was somehow totally normal — well, suffice it to say, skye's not prepared. she finds herself wishing fitz was here to explain it to her, even if it meant dealing with his exasperated "doesn't everyone wake up and talk astrophysics over coffee?" levels of disappointment. )

Fuck, Loki? ( clearly, the quarantine has excellent property damage insurance. ) That's ... yeah. Wow.

( on the plus side, the other woman obviously isn't rooted in fear, so skye thinks it's probably safe to breathe for now. )

You know, they said this place was weird, but I don't know. I was thinking, like, bizarre currency conversion or funny colored coffee. I don't think I even considered doppelgängers and the multiverse.

[11calls]

Yeah, it's a lot and crazy and just generally batshit even for those of us who come from what seems like super levels of weird back home. Here, it's just like everyday sort of stuff. I think they try and undersell it so no one wants to go back and throw themselves back into the portal all stark raving mad and stuff. But if it helps, I think that we all definitely do get used to the weirdness eventually.

Then it becomes another day and another stupid thing, honestly.

[Alex is using her reassuring smile and voice at the moment, because she knows how freaking terrifying this entire thing can be. After all, she's still dealing with it second hand with her partner. Quickly, she gives Skye a calming pat to go along with the smile.]

I swear it does get easier, and just remember that sometimes the natives can do weird things with their parties so watch and see what happens to other people before you like... share a flower or drink something weird. I spent two weeks as a kid not that long ago because of it.

[evite]

( there must be something about the science-y slash investigative-y types. always so quick to ramble on or to reassure her. alex could give jemma a run for her money — all she was missing at this point was a handful of phds and a clipped british accent.

not that skye doesn't appreciate the reassurance, because she does. she could use it. there's something to be said for going into a chat with a free muffin and leaving with the knowledge that multiple versions of the same person exist with an alien refugee camp. something weird. )

I'm — you know what, I'm actually just going to pretend you didn't say some Dr Evil wannabe didn't babyray you, because I am so not equipped for that on just one cup of coffee. ( though, to be fair, she's not sure any amount of coffee would prepare her for that kind of conversation. ) I'm used to weird, but... definitely not that kind of weird.

[11calls]

[Alex just laughs softly, and waves to get the baristia's attention, gesturing to both her and Skye's cups. There's something to be said about being a regular here and also being a good tipper. (And probably just being nice to the workers in general and knowing their names. They also know Alex will always settle up after.]

Well, if it helps there definitely wasn't a Dr. Evil. It was just a thing that happened when you shared particular flowers with someone. I think they're generally pretty big here on wanting you to get your actual feelings out and not hiding them behind a facade, so there's a fair amount of those sorts of things. Which sucks to hear about, I know, but I also think it's better to know them to just get sort of randomly smacked with them one day.

[Which is pretty much what happened with Alex, of course, when she'd gotten here and been semi-convinced that none of this was real.]

[evite]

So basically what you're telling me is this place is like a sentient old lady shrink who wants us to be good sharers in the therapy circle?

( is it obvious that skye has had Not Great experiences with psychological analysis during her years in the foster system? probably. but alex does have a point. it is better to know the goals of a place, if only to try and prepare herself for them. she can make a plan, in any case. )

Got it. No weird flowers, no free lunch. ( makes sense, anyway. there really is no such thing as too good to be true, in her experience. why would that change just because she found herself on an alien planet's moon? ) I can work with that. I think.