Envy's Duplex, The Hegemony Compound, Brazil, Saturday

[whenshewasnice]

There'd been a lot of portaling back and forth between Toronto and Brazil, lately. Kid Chameleon was getting pretty large. Physically. Stephanie Nordegraf had joined up some time ago to play bass, but now Envy had recruited a guy called Cole to take over the drums because he was actually good (and, shut up Stephen, he was actually an okay guy, too), so she'd shifted Scott to bass because Stephanie was taking up bongos and viola.

It was most efficient that way. She wanted the band to really get known. And she wasn't sure why Scott seemed to have a problem with that.

She wasn't sure about a lot of things to do with Scott, these days.

And there was the thing where she wasn't sure whether Jim was alive or not.

So, her mood had not been the best for a while. The piano probably been had been kind of a related impulse buy. To soothe her brain. Something she felt like she deserved. Like she'd earned it by now. (There was a pack of cigarettes on top of it. Those were... yeah. Not exactly a reward.) She was sitting at the piano now, playing some melody or other. Trying to get herself out of her head.

[ooc: NFB, but open!]

Comments

[whenshewasnice]

"Punishment to stall what is done. What I thought was is missing out. What I thought it was it isn't, now."

Resigned. All the more quieter.

"There's a pattern in the system, there's a bullet in the gun. That's why I tried to save you, but it can't be done. It –– can't be done."

She got up abruptly, snatching her cigarettes from the top of the piano.

[lockestheway]

For the first time in months, Peter found the name Nat at the tip of his tongue. He was a better politician than that, though, and he swallowed it.

"Envy?"

[whenshewasnice]

Good thinking. He wouldn't have gotten away with it right now.

Of course, she also ignored his use of the correct name in favour of padding towards the balcony with tension in her shoulders.

[lockestheway]

Peter rubbed at his forehead and tried to figure out whether he should be leaving her alone, or he should go after her.

What made it more complicated was that, from his perspective, the screw-up hadn't even been him this time. (He wasn't sure how to deal with that, either.)

"Do you want me to go?" he said finally.

[whenshewasnice]

Envy didn't reply. She just slipped out onto the balcony.

Because she didn't know. So best just leave it up to him to decide if stayed or went. That way, she could hate him for leaving or she could hate him for staying and that would be on him.

Another question of not committing any particular thing and shifting the pressure of commitment onto the other person.

She lit a cigarette.

[lockestheway]

Well, at least this felt more familiar. Peter pinched the bridge of his nose. "I have fifteen minutes until I have to be back in the office," he said. "I'm not leaving early unless you tell me to."

[whenshewasnice]

Envy pulled the robe more closely around herself and leaned against the railing. Took a drag, then released a puff of smoke and watched it dissolve.

Communication.

[lockestheway]

It was definitely communicating something. Peter took a large sip of his water, then pushed away from the doorway and walked towards - but not onto the balcony.

[whenshewasnice]

She did nothing that counted as a reaction.

Just flicked ash off the end of her cigarette and kept looking out towards the gardens.

[lockestheway]

"Normally I'd preface 'penny for your thoughts' with a remark about how little Hegemony currency is really worth, so you might as well junk it," Peter said, "But that's not true anymore, these days."

[whenshewasnice]

"My private thoughts cost much more than a penny in any currency."

There. Those were words. If dry.

[lockestheway]

"I've got a dollar and fifty cents," Peter said lightly.

[whenshewasnice]

Silently, and without looking at him, Envy held out her free hand in his general direction.

Palm up.

[lockestheway]

Peter reached into his pocket and took out the coins, then pressed them lightly down into her hand.

[whenshewasnice]

Her hand closed around them with some special care so that it didn't touch his. Then she pulled her hand back. Slipped the coins in one pocket of her robe.

"Jim might be dead," she told the garden. "And I don't know if the Scott thing is working out."

[lockestheway]

A couple of years ago, Peter might have I-told-you-so'd her on the Scott thing.

Not so much now.

He frowned. "What happened?" he said. "With Kirk."

[whenshewasnice]

"He's with Starfleet now." She wasn't sure if she'd said. She wasn't sure whether he cared. "So naturally, the last I heard of him, he'd disagreed with a higher-ranking officer about saving someone, and was stranded in a...pod or something, on some ice planet."

[lockestheway]

"You haven't heard anything from Starfleet, either?" Peter asked.

[whenshewasnice]

"No," she said.

More ash fluttered away.

[lockestheway]

Peter winced. "Do they have particular codes of secrecy in his unit, or...?"

[whenshewasnice]

"I'm an ex-girlfriend several universes away," Envy replied. Her tone was neutral, but her voice was quiet. "They don't exactly feel obligated to tell me anything."

[lockestheway]

"Unless he's Black Ops, they'd have said something on a KIA," Peter said gently. "No matter who you are."

[whenshewasnice]

Envy held back a sigh.

"I don't know. It sounded like he'd been tossed out under some very confusing and not very by the book circumstances."

[lockestheway]

"You think they might bury him because it's an embarrasment to the service?"

Peter had little idea how Starfleet worked, but he assumed the answer was 'not much different from the five hundred similar affairs he knew about'.

[whenshewasnice]

That was about the same way Envy approached it.

"Yes." Cynicism detected. "The main hope here is that he's fine, because he's Jim Kirk." So, a stubborn bastard after her own heart. "I wasn't ever able to contact him before, so it's not unfeasible he's alive and well and back on duty by now."