#desertpoison

“Can't Sleep?”

  He whirls, at first. Snaps around with a face made of surprise and guilt like a kid again, caught slinking out of the window well past curfew – a punk crawling down the hall, consequences snapping at his heels. But it's none of that. Just his brother. Kobra's expression blanks and he shrugs his shoulders.

She’s nestled in a bar stool against the wall, nursing her one drink of the night, speaker over her head keeping anyone from trying to talk to her—for the most part. She knows Zach doesn’t exactly work ‘hours’; she could be waiting for a while before her brother’s free again, but she doesn’t mind a bit. It’s fun, sitting here and people watching, piecing people together from what she can see. Even when dracs or crows show up out of uniform—something she’s almost certain they’re not supposed to be doing—they’re easy to pick out of the crowd. The ’joys hanging around see it, too; she watches them react almost subconsciously to the BLI security. It’s fascinating.

She also notices when the ’joys react to something else. The redhead comes through the back door—odd. Rickie hadn’t mentioned anything about a new staff member, since they usually crash in the bed she’s currently using, but only staff and very select few others are allowed in the back. She’s only among that number because she’s Zach’s (Rocket’s) sister and visiting him. She doesn’t think she’d be allowed in the back if she was just passing through with her crew, so this stranger-to-her having access certainly sparks her interest—and a ripple goes through the crowd. A ripple she knows, a ripple she recognizes; she’d triggered similar reactions, back when. Well, that narrows the possibilities of this ’joy’s identity considerably.

@desertpoison //> Unprompted(?)

"you're not hurt, are you?"

  It's hard to know where the dust ends and Tech begins. Caught in her hair and stuck to the sweat — stuck to the place on her shoulder where it's caked into a crimson-colored mud. That's gonna be fun to clean out. But it's not the first time she's met a knife, and for now it doesn't seem to be bleeding anymore so it's easy enough to ignore. She sniffs. Shakes her head a little. Tests to be sure she can still flex her fingers.

She keeps one eye on Strike and Synth, trusting Jounce and Twist to take care of themselves. Aqua sees the kids as her responsibility—not that Jounce and Twist aren’t, but the kids are still fairly green. Sin and Gore aren’t much for clubbing—”Your loss,” Jounce had teased Sin the first time they’d tagged along with Aqua—so she’s the one in charge for the night.

She doesn’t yet trust the club, so refrains from even trying for a nonalcoholic drink. Taking a break from the dance floor, Aqua leans against a high top, shifting her weight from foot to foot, trying to ease the ache her heels cause. She catches Twist watching her from the other side of the club—then realizes he’s not watching her, but someone nearby. She glances around, catches a glimpse of a trademark red, and quickly averts her gaze.

Ruby straightens, wiping her hands on her work rag. She unceremoniously dumps her tools in a waiting bag and hefts it over her shoulder. “Nothin’ too bad, just got some sand in delicate places. Unavoidable out here, but you really should get in there every so often to clean it out. Sand chewed up some important bits; I got a temporary fix in there, but you're gonna want a real mechanic to give it a go-over and fix her up proper.”

“It’s just a cut, really.”

  “You're bleedin' on everything, Pois,” she argues sharply, pointing at the smear they've left behind on the way into Diner. “C'mon. Stop bein' stupid and jus' ... lemme see.” Her insistence comes paired with a none-too-gentle prodding. A poke aimed roughly at where the blood is coming from — she never claimed to be a gentle attendant. Never had a real good example of fluffy care to learn from, and she's just mad enough not to care if she's being rough.

@desertpoison //> The End of the World

"how the hell should I know?"

  Time with Kobra has taught her to wash the worst of her hero-worship out of her gaze when looking Poison's way. That's the way things trend with this whatever-it-is: her closeness to one of their number gradually supplanting distant awe with new nearness. Replacing broad sweeps with better views of frayed edges and painted over cracks, tools with which to remind herself they're still a regular old flesh and blood person, however influential. However much she owes her life to what he and the others have shaped the desert into. Still, she manages to view him with some kind of rose-tinted visor so much of the time.

  Though... not just now. Now she scrunches her face up and sends over a look that's half disgruntled half baffled and just outright surprised a little bit, too, even though that made for more than a whole. Like how she might look if her cat stared her in the eyes and asked 'how do I meow?' and she's not sure if she should be losing her shit about her cat talking or questioning his intelligence levels for speaking up just to ask her that.