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]

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."

[lockestheway]

"I like to think most Fandom graduates have an unnecessary amount of luck on their side," Peter said.

He finally came up to stand next to her on the balcony. "You'll hear from him."

[whenshewasnice]

"I better." There was something sharper to that, if only because it was easier to let that through than all of her worry. "It's been annoying enough that he's been incommunicado so much out of necessity."

Him being dead would surely not help with that.

[lockestheway]

"Instead of worrying, you should decide what heavy thing you're going to fling at his head later," Peter said, because maybe he'd been spending too much time around Petra recently.

[whenshewasnice]

Yeah. Envy gave him a dry look over her cigarette – the first look of any kind since she'd left him for the balcony. "That's Arkanian. I would kick him in the face."

[lockestheway]

"At least you've already gotten that worked out," Peter said.

[whenshewasnice]

"Mm."

She put out the cigarette in the jar she was using as a makeshift ashtray. Hadn't quite gotten around to getting a real one. (Maybe she wasn't a smoker again for real for as long as she didn't have one.)

[lockestheway]

"As for Scott, well..."

He shrugged.

[whenshewasnice]

"I don't know."

That was just verbalizing that same shrug.

"He's very sweet."

[lockestheway]

"You don't like sweet that much," Peter said.

[whenshewasnice]

"How would you know?" she retorted. For want of something better to say and anyway, her tone wasn't harsh. Nothing close to it. "Sam was sweet, too."

Sam was also a lot of other things, some of them darker.

[lockestheway]

"Well, I never really knew Sam," Peter said mildly, "But thanks to Fandom, I know enough that sweet was hardly the be-all end-all of that relationship."

[whenshewasnice]

Envy sighed as she turned and leaned back against the railing. The coins clinked togather in her pocket. "I thought I wanted sweet."

After Sam, after Jim.

After Peter himself, too, in a way.

[lockestheway]

Lightyears away, Valentine burst out laughing at that thought and didn't stop.

"I know," Peter said. "I remember you in high school."

[whenshewasnice]

"A lot of things seemed more certain when we were in high school."

She didn't sound like she approved.

[lockestheway]

"I don't really remember it like that," Peter said lightly. "That was different, for me."

High school had just been one big stretch of crippling uncertainty that he'd poured into his work.

[whenshewasnice]

"Mm."

Sorry, that was the standard comment she had right now.

"Well, you're a special case." Kind of. In some ways.

[lockestheway]

"I was," Peter said. He took a sip of his water. "Now I get the impression it's you."

[whenshewasnice]

"Aw, thank you for noticing I'm special."

Not what he'd meant. See if she cared.

[lockestheway]

"Oh, come on," Peter said, "You can do better than that."

[whenshewasnice]

"What? I am special."

Also considering another cigarette.

[lockestheway]

"Fair enough," Peter allowed. "But as far as wordplay goes, it's predictable."

[whenshewasnice]

"Well, maybe I wasn't looking to be clever." She shrugged a shoulder as she glanced over. "Maybe I was just making fun of you."

[lockestheway]

"Maybe you're deflecting," Peter said mildly. "Because you don't know how to deal with flux."

[whenshewasnice]

"Maybe I'll shove you off this balcony and be rid of this problem once and for all."

Maybe not.