wick(ed) engineer

(Closed w/ @wickengineer​)

Winter was approaching in not too long and knowing that — at least before the nuclear apocalypse — cannabis plants needed heat to survive, Sterling was well aware that he had to find some way to keep the plants warm.

Naturally, if they’d die, they’d come back once the climate was warmer again but that meant he’d most likely run out of weed and he was not up for being without a high for months. Hence, Sterling had a mission to decided to befriend someone with a bit more knowledge than himself— not when it came to plants, but when it came or technology and engineering.

Sterling had read books about it, infrared heat was something many had used in the past but no matter what they used to keep their plants alive, their electrical bills had been sky high and albeit that wouldn’t be a problem for him, there was an even bigger problem— he didn’t have access to the electricity needed.

“Wick!”, Sterling said as he entered the engineering bay, pausing as he took a few seconds to look at whatever the man was working with. “What you working on?”, he asked, sounding a bit more curious than he had intended to do.

         It wasn't like he usually cared what people thought or were doing, but when an individual but into the engineering bay without an appointment it was a little annoying having to throw the nearby blanket over his work. Avery had ( left ) he wasn't supposed to be working on this anymore, else risk the idea that he was " helping the enemy " and even without a good subject to test this on, he wanted to know if it worked, he needed to make it work for her if not anyone else. He needed ( CLARE ) on this was what he needed. Jackson had started to help out too -- but he knew that a medical personnel, and engineer could only go so far. What he needed was a SCIENTIST, new innovations might help him figure out how to do this. He needed a blueprint of the problem so he could find a solution. God this was a mess.

When he glanced up, the last thing he'd expected to see was Steel Argent's kid. If he remembered correctly, the boy was friends with Zoe Monroe, and one of Bellamy's boys... what was he still doing here. Shrugging that off, he crossed his arms over his chest, eyes examining Sterling for a moment, deciding that the boy hadn't ( MEANT ) the question and that he'd simply been excising the rather ( common ) proper greeting to use when one interrupted another working. So instead of delving into details the twenty one year old shrugged, " A pet project of sorts. " he answered. Stepping around the table ( but not before double checking to make sure that the objects under the blanket were completely covered ).

     gina had stayed longer than the rest of them, she hadn’t followed straight away. at first, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to go with them. her family and friends were divided and it conflicted the girl with the red hair. but pike was getting more ruthless, harder to stand each day that passed and so gina had decided to gather the remaining people that didn’t want to be there and head out to the mountain. the fact that bellamy was there only made things harder for her - not that people would understand that. the voice causes her to smile slightly, head whipping around to look over her shoulder, “ —– would you be quiet, numb skull. “ she shoots back. and again, no one would understand how HARD it was to leave wick behind. they’d been through so much together and she had simply left him, “ i’m not meant to be here, remember. “

          Though Avery was paying attention mostly her mind had wandered a little ways away, the sound of rushing water made her imagine swimming, the cool water in contrast of the heat of the sun. She quickly looked over at him. Nodding before she spoke. “Well enough I guess, there’s more medical equipment in the mountain just in case anything happens so Noah well he’s lessened his protective brother grasp on me. Other then that…everything’s the same…How about you?” As she spoke she lifted her head from his shoulder and looked at him. The times they had visited the waterfall together always seemed to brighten up her whole week, and each time her smile got a little softer and her want to stay there grew just a tad stronger. 

     she’s only just gotten out of arkadia, so why was she here again? why was she back in her home away from home? the dropship looked weird to her now —- it looked unsafe, dirty and full of ghosts. she wasn’t meant to be here but then again, when did gina follow the rules? maybe she had been around murphy too much. she had jasper’s word that he would stay safe as he went off in his direction and she went off into hers. she needed to pick some things from her room - mementos she guessed. if pike saw her, she would be in bigger trouble than she could even begin to fathom.  

Bryan clenched his hands into fists, mostly to try and calm his nerves, but also because this man was getting on his nerves, and it stung. “That makes no sense, Sir…” He tried to protest. He shouldn’t have been there? Did the other have some special path that only he was allowed on, and other people stayed away from him or something? He just shook his head then and rolled his eyes, because this man was clearly delusional, and as kind as Bryan was trying to be, it wasn’t doing anything obviously.

He went quiet, watching the other and wondering just how rude the other was on a bad day (he really didn’t want to find out). He turned to watch the other starting to walk off, and at his words, he couldn’t stop himself. “The only reason I’d go to medical is to tell them that you clearly need an appointment, or a straightjacket,” He snorted out, before turning pale at realizing just what he’d said. Oops.

            Oh NO FUCKING WAY. It took about half a second for Kyle to register what exactly it was the brat had said. And he would have said excuse me but --- he was pretty sure that his expression already said it. The twenty one year old adjusted his stance for a second, a light glare slowly growing as he spent more and more time looking at him. He kid was totally getting on his NERVES now. Talk about being a disrespectful little shit did this kid’s parents not teach him manners or something. “ What the FUCK did you say. ” Wick took a step forward -- two steps, then stopped. Getting into a physical fight was petty. And he was above it ( right ? ). 

Bryan froze as the other crossed his arms over his chest like that. Well, he thought to himself, he’d clearly done something wrong at this point, and he squared his shoulders a bit, nervous and waiting for the other to lash out or something. He was already on edge as it was, and this probably wasn’t going to end well. Taking a deep breath, he moved one hand to his pocket, before realizing he’d left his knife in the room, so even if he did have to defend himself, he was relying on fists only.

Hearing the other, he blinked and looked confused, eyebrows furrowing together. “Yes we did?” He stated slowly, “I ran into you, you ran into me. Otherwise you would have stepped around me, if you had seen me.” He shrugged a little, figuring that made the most sense; he would have gone around him instead of crashing into him too, right? “Sorry,” He apologized again, “I’ll take blame for it, if you want. But I don’t think running into someone merits something like that either… Sir.”

            This guy certainly was ( dumb ) --- or at least he wasn’t paying any attention or knew basic manners. Whatever had hit this kid certainly had been ( STRONG ) because he totally seemed to be missing what Kyle was saying ( or the kid was completely ignoring him which knowing the kids around here could totally have been an option ). “ I don’t need to have seen you. YOU shouldn’t have been here. No one is ever here. YOU’RE the one in the new place YOU should have been paying attention. WE didn’t mutually do anything. YOU ran into ME. ” Wick spoke simply, as if it were the most obvious hung in the world because HE wasn’t the one to blame for this ( not in any reasonable thing that he could think of anyway ). And the fact the kid thought he was doing him a FAVOR by taking the blame for something that was already his fault was insulting. 

“Totally amazing.” She deadpanned, rolling her eyes and laughing when he mentioned Raven. “Now there’s some amazing. Asian kid… Monty? Jasper’s friend? Hmm, not too surprised about that. So you’ve been over here with brains like that and I’ve been stuck in a tundra trying not to die. Who’d I kill in a past life?” She groused.

His voice hitched on the word friend, and she narrowed her eyes at him. “You don’t have friends. You have lackeys and you have people you occasionally tolerate. Who’s this friend that’s important enough to merit a favor from you?”

He smirked a little at the idea that he was stuck with ( overly young ) mini-einsteins was a little scary. But the smile fell off his face the minute she mentioned the Ice Nation territory. RIGHT should probably ( not ) be joking about almost getting slaughtered in the snow. Also he had to give props to these Ice Nation guys they’d successfully made humanity scared of fluffy white stuff. Like wow. That’s really some amazing ( or horrifying ) marketing right there.

The guard threw Noah to the ground, following him down to throw another punch in a fight that Noah never meant to start. In reality, he didn’t even know why the guard had attack him in the first place. But now he was shielding his face with one arm, trying to push the guard off with the other. The man had years of training over him, but the approaching foot steps gave Noah hope that maybe he’d survive this after all. 

Bryan pursed his lips, eyes narrowing a bit more as he heard Kyle say that he didn’t run into people. “Clearly, we’re going to have to agree to disagree,” He stated, voice calm and collected still, even if he was annoyed and a little nervous with the way the other glared at him. He was going to stand his ground though; despite everything that had happened, with the landing and grounders and all, he wasn’t completely going to roll over. He had defended himself before, after all, and even if he’d hated it, he was sure that he could do it again.

“… That’s a lie,” He stated after a pause, his voice only a little shaky, “Sinclair wouldn’t put me on bathroom duty when we mutually ran into each other.” He shook his head, though did step back just a bit. He was on guard, and despite the slight sharpness in his tone, he didn’t want to provoke more than necessary. He just wanted there to be understanding, instead of anger.

            Wick paused as the boy dared disagree with him, the engineer crossing his arms ( being careful with the papers in his hands ) and just staring at the kid. WHAT. There was no place to ( disagree ) there it wasn’t WICK’s fault if the boy was blind and walking into people had certainly not happened ever since he got out of the Skybox. Nah he was one of like seven prized kids, the magnificent seven who were going to save the ark ( though Raven Reyes was the only other one who’d made it down as far as he could tell ). And sure the Ark wasn’t a thing anymore but WHAT THE HELL was up with this kid and his fucking attitude. The sarcastic gleam that was signature to the twenty one year old’s eyes faltered for a moment, before slowly fading as confusion took over. Had this kid hit his head ? Suffered memory loss ? Not remembered he was supposed to avoid engineers when they were working at all costs. Whatever it was something was obviously WRONG and he should probably be taken to see a doctor or something.

          At the sound behind him, Monty looked up hopeful– though for a strew of faces he knew were gone. Arkadia was too quiet these days, and though he didn’t regret staying behind ( okay maybe some nights he did ) he did regret the loss. Splitting up had been for the best, right? Then how come it just felt like another gap in which to loss and hurt? Any optimism dwindled, however, as soon as he saw the face. 

          He missed his friends.

          He missed the hundred.

                                       “Oh, hey.”

           The HEY he was greeted with was more than a little depressing. Sinclair had asked him to check up on the kid ( which WICK didn’t understand considering he’d basically thrown a tantrum when he found out the kid was touching HIS energy systems ). Still he followed orders, so he’d been sipping on a cup off coffee as he entered the room and just ended up PAUSING when he heard the very depressing “ hey ”. Like what the ll was up with that ( hey ). Sinclair had said to get the kid’s spirits up but -- how the fuck was he supposed to do that. 

Bryan couldn’t help the frown that crossed his face at Kyle’s words, his eyes narrowing slightly. He was, after all, just trying to be polite like his mother had taught him, but it seemed like manners might be lost on people now that they were on the ground. He stayed quiet for a moment as he shook the other’s hand, and listened to him question him. A sigh escaped his lips and he quickly shook his head. This guy seemed a little rude, but he supposed having been here for awhile would make people like that, and he was just going to keep trying to be kind to him.

“Not lost, just… thinking. I just got here, so I have no idea what’s going on, and it’s just… confusing,” He tried to explain, though added, “I didn’t mean to run into you, and I didn’t know that you were working on some important stuff, but… you also ran into me, so you could have watched out as well?” It wasn’t harsh or rude, more like afraid as he said it, but just trying to make a point, “You didn’t even drop it or anything anyway…” He nodded his head, as if pointing out that the other still had all the notes in his hand anyway.

            Thinking. That was such a fun thing to think about. Wick would think that someone having to follow orders all the time like a puppy wouldn’t have to think and RUN INTO PEOPLE. Also what kid of person didn’t realize what was going on in life, Wick might be engrossed in his work but at least he could focus on things occasionally. Look up every few seconds to tell people what to do and where to go and making sure that he didn’t end up face first into a wall. Still it was rather amusing to watch this PIKE kid. He seemed to squirm under Kyle’s gaze and honestly he found it extremely amusing. He hadn’t met someone this squirmy down here in ages. Mostly because being uncomfortable got you KILLED.

Her eyes narrowed. I don’t know. She hated those words, loathed those words more than anything. She hated not knowing things, hated not being able to figure out how to know things, it made her feel stupid and if there was one thing she didn’t take well, it was feeling stupid. “Fine, be useless, I’ll go figure it out. I’ll let you know what I find.” He may or may not care about what she finds, but it’s never stopped her from showing up at his workspace with random facts before; why should Earth be any different?

She waved off his more logical explanation, partially just to poke fun at him. “It’s obviously because you’ve missed me, you don’t have to admit it, I know these things.” A month to six… well that was a nice timeline. Clearly there was only one solution, “Someone that knows how and isn’t totally busy. Consider it done, I am not waiting six months for my software.” The wait alone might kill her. She realized she’d hijacked the conversation, and partially because she knew manners even if she didn’t always use them, and partially because she was genuinely curious, she turned the conversation to him. “What have you been getting up to here?”

          Be USELESS isn’t quite right, he doesn’t quite care about it. The whole SCIENCE thing wasn’t exactly the most useful thing down here and if he was being honest he didn’t quite care for things that weren’t 100% needed up until things calmed down a few weeks ago. Why did it matter if he’d looked for them at all, still as she kept talking he just nodded along, letting out a small laugh as she suggested that he might actually have missed her ( which they BOTH knew was a little too true ) and promptly moved on from the topic. No need to linger in a place where they both would just get too awkward if it continued. He did however give her a small thanks as she concluded that she was going to get him a helper ( not like he’d expected her to wait six months anyway ).