(no subject)

[headinjuries]

CHARACTERS: Sam and you
WHERE: The Bearings
WHEN: day 46
SUMMARY: After the b&e on Public Security, Sam's distraction efforts have been noticed...by the extranet.
WARNINGS: Memeloving shitposts.


[ So. It's...definitely not bright and early the day after the break-in, because some hosts were up way past their bedtimes. (Some hosts will deny up and down that bedtimes are a thing they should ever have to consider, because oh my God what do you think he is, six years old or something.)

But he's slept in, he's finally stumbled into the shower, and Sam has parked himself in the common room with the news on, a few extranet feeds up in front of him, and a bowl of something vaguely like Cinnamon Toast Crunch drowning in something vaguely like chocolate milk, because researching what everyone knows and what everyone thinks about their highly illegal activities is an important activity and working out that scroll button works up an appetite.

And then he stops in the middle of a bite, spoon still in his mouth and one eyebrow shooting up, as he takes a look at what's actually going on in one of those windows.

It's some badly captured footage of his light show from last night - a bright blue blur doing a few loops and barrel rolls, and some text in a loud, annoying font slapped on the bottom: YOU CAN'T EXPLAIN THIS. Another one, this one just a still cap of the same: I DON'T KNOW, THEREFORE ALIENS. A few others, with text with varying degrees of ironically poor grammar... ]

-hmgd.

[ Right. That spoon was still in his mouth. He takes it out, swallows his mouth full of cereal, and tries that again: ]

Oh my God. I'm a meme.

Comments

[headinjuries]

[ He's always mildly surprised when he actually sees Parker, given how much time she spends avoiding them all. But commenting on it feels kind of pointless, and also distracting from the truly interesting things happening this morning, like him being a meme, so you know, whatever. ]

Right up there with not flunking out last year.

[ Despite the sarcasm, that was actually a pretty good achievement for him, considering how much class he missed. ]

[unfavoured]

[ If she was more of a talkative person, she would probably make a comment about him being a meme ranking so high in his personal achievement lists is kind of sad. But she would probably remember that he's like, twelve, so one could see how it could be granted great news. But then again, memes aren't that big of a fad in the future Parker comes from and much less in her life. ]

I don't think you have to worry about that anymore.

[ Which normally people would say it as a good thing, or at least a joke, but considering Miss Negative here, she says it in an almost judgmental tone. ]

[headinjuries]

Yeah, I almost made it a day without thinking about never seeing Earth again. Good thing you reminded me!

[ Come on, Parker. Let a guy have five minutes of blissful distraction from the harsh reality of being stranded in deep space, light years and realities away from giving his sister a noogie or Mom's pancakes for breakfast. ]

[unfavoured]

[ No, she would rather remind these people that they're working for some undisclosed "powers that be" or corporation or whoever knows who have told them they'll save the universe and everyone just believed them.

In all fairness, she didn't do it out of spite. Surprisingly, she doesn't really have anything against this kid (yet), not because he's a kid, but because he is polite enough to keep out of her hair unlike a good handful of these people. She did it because she has absolutely no sense of tact when it comes to, well, most things.

So instead of feeling remotely awkward about that, she just gives him a one-shouldered shrug. ]

Why are you a meme anyway? [ Parker asks as she puts the spoon in the dishwasher-thingamajig.

She isn't very good at small talk, but if there's one thing Parker is, it's curious. ]

[headinjuries]

[ There's room to be ambivalent about a lot of things on this mission, but once bombs started going off, that made it a lot easier for Sam to get on board. He's still not sure how to feel about the original mission, but if solving that also involves stopping some jackasses from blowing up public places, that's the kind of douchebaggery he's all too happy to throw a wrench in.

...of course, once they're off Concordia, who knows, but Sam's gotten good at zeroing in on the good he can do right now instead of worrying about five steps down the road. It's a good way not to drive himself crazy. ]

Bruce and Mara needed a distraction, so I made one. And apparently half of the extranet is taking it as proof of their wacky alien conspiracy theories, and the other half is making fun of the ones who did.

[ Technically, they're aliens to this world, so the wackos aren't even wrong! It's funny in so many layers, see. ]

[unfavoured]

[ She would disagree, but then again, when doesn't she disagree with about everyone in this place? It would almost seem out of character for her. Still, her thoughts on the matter are only known on a superficial level and she doesn't care to expand on them and reason. She also doesn't care for people to know the place she comes from and her background. It would make everything much simpler to understand, but she isn't here to make anyone's life easy.

She takes the mug to her lips and blows on it before sipping some of the coffee-like liquid. ]

That was a stupid distraction. [ She says simply as she looks at the image on repeat. ] Aren't you people supposed to be on the down low?

[ You people. Everything she does, she says, she acts, is an effort to put barriers between them<./small> ]

[headinjuries]

It got the job done and I didn't leave anything that points back here.

[ He was careful about that, in a way that he's not usually that careful about anything. Left the earpiece back at the Bearings, picked a starting point on the other side of town, and all that jazz. And really, with all the weird gravimetric energy he was tossing around - ]

I don't think they've even got enough to realize there was a person in there.

oh wow look at beautifully botched html im amazing

[unfavoured]

It was sloppy.

[ She says, walking over to the furthest chair away from him, setting her mug on the table and pulling the book rolled up behind her back up to her hands, flicking over to a page with the corner slightly bent. She smooths it out with thumb and takes the mug with her free hand, taking a sip of her coffee. ]

Being able to do it doesn't mean you can't do it better.

[ It's hard to read, between the lines. But Parker's absolute dreadful way with words might make it sound she's chastising him for doing a shit job, but in actuality she is telling him he has the potential to do better. But, first of all, she would never admit to that. And second, she would definitely say it the same way even if she did.

Alas. ]

[headinjuries]

Yeah, well, this is kind of a crappy place to practice.

[ Especially now that he has used that trick, he doesn't want to break it out again unless the shit truly hits the fan. If people are looking for it again, that could be trouble, but if he doesn't use it, they've got nothing to look into.

Being indefinitely grounded is the absolute worst, and it's no small part of the frustration that he radiates pretty much as a rule of thumb. ]

I can't wait to get off this rock.

[unfavoured]

[ Parker gives him a look over her book, feet crossed on a nearby chair as she reaches for the coffee mug. ]

And that's a crappy excuse.

[ Turning his words on him, sort of. Parker lets it die, though, setting the mug back on the table and flipping the page. It is somewhat comforting to find a book in the middle of all the technology. Some sense of familiarity. Kind of.

This time, she doesn't look away from the words across the paper-like material of the book. ]

To do what?

[headinjuries]

[ He shrugs. ]

Stop having to lie about what I'm doing here every time I go outside. Take a flight without having to make it into some kind of intelligence operation.

[ Being stuck on the ground is the most obvious way Concordia chafes him, but if he's honest with himself, it's about being stuck in a lot more ways than not being able to take off to orbit when he feels like it. ]

[unfavoured]

[ If this had been a few years ago, that would have damaged irreversibly the already awful relationship she has with him - which is barely there at all, like every other person, but worse, because there is that awful feeling that doesn't even belong to her tugging them together against her will. But as it is, it only gets a mild grimace that could be anything.

Instead, she just says in obvious disdain ]

Poor you.

[headinjuries]

Hey, you asked.

[ He doesn't expect most people to get the flying thing. He wouldn't have really gotten it, a couple of years prior. But it's gotten to be the thing that keeps him together when everything else is going to shit - being able to take off for an hour, sit on the moon, and find his chill where nobody can screw it up halfway.

Being without it now makes him wonder how the hell his father ever gave it up to stay earthbound. ]