Hegemony Compound Grounds, Saturday

[whenshewasnice]

Envy was covered in paint. Although while she was walking through the compound grounds on her way home, you couldn't really tell that was the case. Not until she shrugged off her jacket - it'd been much cooler where she was coming from, so the jacket had been more merited there than it was here - and it left her arms bare. Because usually, her arms were pale and without a single mark on them. And now? They were a mess of colour and patterns and seemingly random symbols and text fragments.

It was all for a music video, of course. The album was still due to launch in a couple of markets, even as they were already looking towards getting its follow-up together, and her team had decided making a video for Satellite Mind would make sense. So that was what she'd been doing for the past couple of days. Two days of stuff without body paint, and then this last one with body paint, and Envy was oh so ready to come home.

And, yes, they had offered to help her take it all off, but the shoot had run late and they'd been almost kicked out of the location and so she'd opted to just deal with herself. In the comfort of her own home.

She hoped this wasn't going to turn out to be a bad idea.

[ooc: NFB but open for whatever.]

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[lockestheway]

Peter had noticed someone had entered her apartment, but, as per usual, he'd been too busy to check.

Now, though, he was making it over across the hall to knock.

[whenshewasnice]

By the time he showed up, Envy had changed into an absolutely fetching combo of a tank top and some shorts. Every last bit of skin visible below her neck and aside from her hands was still painted over, though her left arm was much fainter and more smudged than the rest, as that was where she'd started with the clean-up.

The top was stained blue-ish on that side.

"Hi," she said, as the door opened. "No touching, I'll stain you." Well, the half-clean arm would. Everything else was dry and set.

[lockestheway]

Peter raised his eyebrows.

"I feel like I missed something," he said. "Unless this is some fresh take on the Blue Man Group."

[whenshewasnice]

"How dare you," Envy replied in deadpan, not even bothering with a question mark. "It's for the video."

[lockestheway]

"And they didn't bother to hose you off before they sent you off?" Peter said. "Now that's poor customer service."

[whenshewasnice]

Envy rolled her eyes. "I left." It might not have been her best decision, but so far, she'd been making decent progress so, whatever. "It took hours to put this all on, I didn't feel like letting people prod at me again to take it all off when I know how to shower by myself just fine."

[lockestheway]

Peter glanced over his shoulder to make sure the couch was still where it always was.

Then he dropped himself backwards into it. "Fair enough," he said. "How was it?"

[whenshewasnice]

"Should be good," Envy offered with a mild shrug. The mildness was born mostly out of how tiring the past few days had been, and not much else. "Worth the trouble, for the most part. Can't really tell before they're editing, though."

[lockestheway]

"I wasn't asking about the video, but about the shoot you had," Peter said, amused. "But if we want to pretend those are the same thing, I'm happy to do it."

[whenshewasnice]

Envy bristled. Probably because he'd said pretend. The shoot was wholly tied up with its end result, for her.

Also, she was tired. "I answered about the shoot," she replied, flatly. "If you're not going to actually listen to me, Peter, you can just go home. I'm not in the mood."

[lockestheway]

"'Should be good, worth the trouble'," Peter parrotted back at her. "I heard you."

You know, maybe he should take that out. Good things never happened when Envy was this snippy.

[whenshewasnice]

It sounded to Envy like he'd already made his choice.

"Get out."

She didn't stay and wait for his reaction. Just turned and walked away. She had an extensive clean-up process to return to in the bathroom, anyway.

[lockestheway]

"Fine," Peter said, rising out of his seat. "Come find me when you're up to normal human conversation again."

With that, he opened the door and left. He had plenty of work left on his desk to deal with.

[whenshewasnice]

Good, then he probably wouldn't miss her.

Because the first thing she did after hearing that was get her phone off the bathroom counter, and order a portal - for the next morning, because no matter how annoyed she was, she didn't have the enrgy to pack anything tonight.

Tomorrow, New York.

[lockestheway]

Peter hadn't heard from Envy since the night before, and had... well, he'd tried to shrug it off.

And he'd totally succeeded.

Just like he totally wasn't watching her door as he walked out into the hallway, this morning.

[whenshewasnice]

Envy hadn't thought about him at all, either. Considering how many of the painted things she'd had to wash off herself had been subtle allusions to him, that was quite the feat.

(It was also patently untrue.)

And this morning, she emerged from her apartment just as he was in the hallways. "Oh." The sour tone was highly unnecessary. And also very Envy, in the least pleasant sense.

She was carrying one bag, and dragging a wheeled suitcase behind her.

[lockestheway]

Well. That tone didn't bode well.

"I didn't know you had something else lined up."

[whenshewasnice]

"It seems like I should go to New York for a while," Envy drawled. "Where the other non-normal humans are."

That was... incredibly, embarrassingly petty. Did her even tone save it from bordering on childish? Probably not.

[lockestheway]

Peter blinked.

And then... frowned.

"Seriously?" he said. "I thought you were just having a bad night."

[whenshewasnice]

Envy pushed the bag further up her shoulder. "It's easy to make a bad night into a bad morning."

[lockestheway]

"Jesus Christ," Peter said, because that was what he had to that. "Well, gosh, sorry for asking after your wellbeing, Envy, I won't make that mistake again."

[whenshewasnice]

Envy's turn to blink.

That, in itself, qualified as her ice queen mask cracking some. But it seemed to falter a little otherwise, too. "When did you ask after my wellbeing?"

[lockestheway]

"Last night," Peter said irritably, though he wasn't entirely sure what to make of that answer. "Right before you decided to tell me to shut up or get lost."

[whenshewasnice]

"You asked about the shoot," Envy retorted. "Then nitpicked my answer for semantics."

Well, that was what she'd heard.

[lockestheway]

"I asked about what the shoot had been like for you," Peter said irritably, "Instead of in terms of how good the video was going to be."

It was entirely possible they needed communication lessons.