OPEN RP.

[prosodi]

Bits and bobs here



- place prompt/character desired here
- receive words

Comments

for charliiie

[motherofnemesis]

not smut I whisper to myself while writing this

[alittlesweptup]

She may not drink (often), but he does. And while he can pinpoint the first time this happened, he can't put his finger on why he keeps doing it - but Charlie does: crashing her flat with a fifth or a few beers or whatever suits his fancy at the time in tow. It's mostly an excuse to chat, to get out of his own flat which still feels strangely unlived in since the reassignments after the crash. Charlie likes to think Max is pleasantly surprised by the always impromptu, no forward warning, often late evening visits. He knows it's not always true, but fuck it. When has he ever been terribly considerate?

Granted, it's late even by his watch when he knocks on her flat's door. He's got a bottle of red under one arm and a plastic bag in the other, the contents of which must be heavy. He's half betting there won't be any answer.

and this is for shepard 8D

[battlesleep]

[2leftfeet]

The hum of the Normandy as it burns through space is something that resonates bone deep, thrumming in the hollow of her chest beside the beat of her heart. It's something she finds herself more and more aware of as they inch their way back from the Omega-4 Relay toward whatever is waiting for them back in Alliance space. There have been long conversations. She's written reports, made some of her goodbyes. From here to Earth, it's a short run.

Contrary to what she should feel, now that the decision's been made and they're closing in on what could be her last stop, she finds the tension has been melting off. There's something sure to her step - as if there wasn't usually. She doesn't bother to knock before making her way into Life Support, a cup of tea in each hand. The steam coming off both is making her hands sweat.

"Thane?"

and this is for natasha because i can

[boughtabookstore]

whoops this is clunky as hale

[ex_krasnaya635]

If she's being realistic - and that's something she usually is by default rather than trying to be -, it's not the first war torn wasteland she's ever been dropped into. It's not even the first one she's seen without a familiar face or two flanking her. The time travel and the dimension hopping is undeniably freaky (and she does, sometimes, get scared - finds herself sleepless in the middle of the night and wishing for a security clearance level five dossier to thumb through), but she can admit it's not outside the realm of possibility.

So Natasha does what she had always done: she adapts. In Exsilium that seems to mean pretending things are fine and normal even when they're neither. Which is how she ends up in the library, carefully moving through the stacks of volumes both familiar and utterly, completely alien. Only half the books even look like books, the other half stray files and database numbers for access on the library's systems. She doesn't think of herself as much of a reader (which isn't entirely true, not always), but there's a strange kind of stability in the shelves and in the organization, unchanged like something preserved in a museum.

She knows a thing or two about preservation.

[totallytrustworthy]

"Deep down we both know it wasn't supposed to end like this."

[alittlesweptup]

There is a district in Tel Aviv populated almost entirely by warehouses and industrial buildings - a strange, modern patch of architecture in a city otherwise rooted firmly in some other decade, some other century. In that district there is a warehouse where a drop is being botched and a fire is being set by an accidental bullet sent into an accidental barrel with some kind of gas that sparks and then burns so hot the metal explodes outward. It sends a storm of shards tearing through the largely aluminum open car door that Charlie is taking cover behind. It punches through metal and skin with a 'ding, thck' noise and he staggers briefly. Scrabbles at the door ledge and the window crank more out of instinct than for any real purpose.

"Aw, shit!" he shouts, ducking his head. There's blood, but when isn't there? He leans up into the window frame of the door. There used to be glass there, but it's been shot out. He fires a few shots of his own and one of the bastards on the other side of the warehouse snaps his head back and goes limp over a pile of cargo.

[i_swear]

[endureandsurvive]

There's good things and there's bad things about Jackson County, that hydroelectric dam and it's assortment of temporary and permanent housing cobbled into something like a community. For one, Ellie officially doesn't give a single shit about going back to school but it's not like anyone's asking her opinion about that, now are they? But there's electricity and light at night and the when she's lying in bed if she closes her eyes she can make out the water as it growls through the dam. And mostly that's a good thing, except when it isn't. Except when she wakes up in the middle of the night and the sound grates on her - alien, like going to sleep without her shoes on (which she does now too. Fucking weird, right?).

She's careful about sliding her legs out of bed, kicking her feet over - eases her way into a pair of jeans and then boots before shrugging into a pullover sweater. It's well into summer, but nights in the foothills sometimes stay cold. Her fingers scuff across the raised scar tissue on her forearm, but she doesn't think about it because getting out of the bunkhouse quietly is at the top of her list. Which she does - she's had practice being quiet as anything and slipping out under the hum of the water and everything else is cake, though she lets the tension in her limbs ease out once she traipsing across the yard toward the barn nestled against one of the exterior walls of the complex.

It's dead night and still louder than it ought to be: the murmur of people high on the wall running the usual perimeter checks, the stray yap of a dog. But inside the barn (a proper one, built in the months since they'd been out to Utah and back) it's insulated against sound and cold - just the shift of a few horses in their hay and wood shavings, the faint smell of fur and dust, animal sweat and horse shit. She strokes the nose of one of the dozing horses in the half light. "Hey buddy," she murmurs, kissing his face. "I guess you're pretty used to all this noise, huh?"

AU

[totallytrustworthy]

Summer. Past noon, post bath. Three days before a man in Mustique needs a long, low-cut dress and a dagger shoved well up beneath the bone of his jaw. And she decides, sipping away at a fresh cappuccino , wrapped in plush cashmere and little else (cool wooden floors serving as a comfortable contrast to the heat between her fingertips) that she'd rather be there instead of her spare flat in London, watching the rain come down in buckets.

Bad weather has little to do with it.

There are letters on the coffee table. Ten months' worth, opened with so much care that they're neither torn nor wrinkled; handwriting inside as unfamiliar as the names-- save for one: Cutter.

Odd thing about it being that it's all old news. Registered data. Well beyond the point of being useful, but Frazer pins them all to paper. Catalogues the time stamps the way they're burned into the back of her mind. That he's lasted ten months when it ought to have been four. That the last time they had tea, she never once went for the bangle at her wrist--

That she ought to put a bullet through the delicate, woven tissue of his throat just to watch him bleed out and cut short how much trouble he's become.

[alittlesweptup]

There is rain on the window, heavy and full drops. The sky is dark and pushes everything down so that the flat feels strangely close to the ground despite being on the third floor. It's oddly disorienting, or should be, but Charlie find himself not really thinking about that. Rather, he find himself standing in front of a bookshelf peering at the worn spine of a particular book. These are his books, he knows. This one feels important, but for reasons he can't put his finger on. He pulls it out, opens it, and flips idly through the pages without anything jumping out at him. So he closes it - though tucks it under his arm rather than putting it back on the shelf - before moving for the stairs and clunking his way down from the loft with heavy steps. His shoes are still on, though the buttons of his shirt are mostly undone and the tails are untucked. He's not sure where his tie is, but assumes it'll turn up; he's not fond of it anyway.

He sometimes finds he's unsure how he came to be places - though also tends not to think about that too much. A lucky side effect; he's never been terrible retrospective. A little disorientation is normal, right? But he remembers her and their itinerary for the next week. He remembers the shape of her thighs and isn't really surprised to find her still in a sweater and little else when he reaches the bottom of the spiral stairs. But he shouldn't be, right? That's how he left her, wasn't it?

The weather, the smell of ozone in the air, has the flat tasting like dust and lack of use. "Bit chilly in here, isn't it?" It's not a terrible compelling sort of question, but it is neutral. Easy. Non-offensive. That's important.

AU: 4 Meera

[totallytrustworthy]

There's no such thing as jealousy. Not for members of the Order, not when it leads to irrational conflict, careless mistakes. Frazer's been trained well enough to know better than to indulge no matter how satisfying the outcome.

Eliminating a threat, on the other hand? Perfectly reasonable. Particularly one that's embedding itself in the skin of their most recent investment.

Which is exactly what she'll say should the matter come up, she thinks, scrolling through the contact list of Charlie's phone. Meera's information comes up quick, previous text conversations skimmed through, noted, and then mimicked with minimal effort.

passing the bookshop just down the road. thought you might like a cuppa

THIS IS AWFUL AND YOU'RE AWFUL

[illuminator]

The text isn't a surprise, but it is pleasant. She finds herself fighting the edge of a smile even before she opens it which is silly, but there you go. Sitting back in her chair, Meera uncurls her feet from under it and stretches her legs forward. She shouldn't. She has work to do. She has a stack of papers a mile high to sort through, never mind the miscellaneous assortment of other nonsense she should be chipping away at but--

But to hell with it. She could use a break, she rationalizes. That's perfectly reasonable and not at all frivolous or irresponsible or even a little bit ridiculous of her.

Dying for one. meet you in twenty?

Here's to new beginnings

[totallytrustworthy]

[For once Chloe's early, elbows propped up over worn table wood, hands tucked neatly under her chin as she scans the bar's entrance (more hole than door thanks to the United Earth's most recent efforts) for the barest sign of her expected company. Three pints set out in front keeps any exceedingly lonely patrons from assuming she's drinking alone, and ensures the lads will have something else to fixate on aside from the sight of one another once they finally turn up.

Till the introductions start, at least. ]

Re: Here's to new beginnings

[hellosailor]

[All things considered things could be worse. Had been worse. And this was far from the shittiest dive he'd been in. He wasn't quite sure this was the brightest goddamn idea, either. He'd just gotten here, and the possibilities for bad behavior were endless. But it couldn't hurt to hear the proposition, and at the very least he'd get a drink out of it. And some pleasant company.

The girl was that, at least. He could hardly believe the kid would ever be capable enough to catch the attentions of a woman that fine, but she said she knew Nate, knew more about the kid than she could possibly invent (some of it more than he needed to know). Come to think of it, she knew more about him than she could invent. That was promising.

He pushed his way through the half-exploded door and into the darkness of the bar, took in the sights. Not the most cheerful looking place, but no one seemed actively hostile, even few hugely drunk patrons were more sugar than spice. And his new prospective partner.]

Chloe! Good to see you. Is one of those for me?

[He swings himself into the chair opposite, one arm thrown over the back, knees loose. Carefully casual.

[alittlesweptup]

He's never been much of a gambler - not the the traditional sense anyway. Sure, he knows cards all right, knows how to shuffle and few parlor tricks but what self respecting low dealing con artist this side of the Thames doesn't know how to turn a few? Poker's not really is game. Neither is blackjack. Or craps or roulette or slot machines or any of that shit. If he's betting money, he'd rather put it on a fight or a dog or something with more heart in it than bits of pressed card stock.

But sure: poker night. They're supposed to be bonding or something and what better way to do it than cheating Sully out of some of his spare change? "Alright," he says as he jams open the window in the cramped flat's living room. Maybe with the right airflow, they won't be smelling cigars for a solid month after. "But I hope you told him this was BYOB because there isn't much left here."

[totallytrustworthy]

It's a predictable path: every time Charlie hears the name 'Victor' there's a certain curl to his lip that refuses to settle, no matter how-- or where-- Chloe decides to set her fingertips against the slope of his spine. The two mix as well as oil and water, and she has absolutely no illusions that a friendly game of cards is going to do anyone any favors.

But whatever happens, the three of them need to learn to work as a team.

--or as close as they can get to it, anyway. At least when Talbot or Marlowe turning up out of nowhere is an ever present possibility. If they can sit down for one evening without shots being fired, she'll consider it a success.

"Easy, Charlie. I already picked up a bottle of wine from you-know-where. With any luck, if he doesn't bring his own this time, he sure as hell will the next."

Shapper: Cyllene | Day 4

[chickenselects]

[Well it could be worse.

Or at least that's what Garrus tells himself, anyway. After all, there are worse things than getting stuck in a room so luxurious it'd make even the asari consort feel completely out of place. He's fairly certain he's seen senators in smaller quarters.

And that the station's been going a little haywire's common knowledge by this point. (Yesterday the pantry sealed shut on him for twenty minutes, while the unlucky explorer just next door was trapped for well over an hour before Garrus could figure out how to crack through the lock.) Minor pain in the ass, but whatever, it's not the worst he's put up with for the sake of tracking down some solid information.

So for the moment he's currently meandering around the far corner of the room, just beside a window lit by a near blinding synthetic sky.]

Just out of curiosity, it's not a bad idea to drink something left behind on an abandoned ship if it looks expensive, right?

Re: Shapper: Cyllene | Day 4

[2leftfeet]

[After three days spent moving through the eerily vacant station - room after empty room abandoned mid-stride, punctuated only by the flicker of some far off shadow or the hiss of something near her ear - she'd probably be willing to admit that no, being stuck in a luxuriously appointed suite isn't the worst thing she can imagine. But Shepard's also not sure that anyone's ever described her as 'imaginative' before either.

Case in point: the moment they discovered the door had jammed itself, she'd set herself to tinkering around with the control panel despite her own woeful lack of any kind of engineering or hacking ability. How hard could it be to override a simple door control, right? She's been standing there for a while, trying to equivalent of 'turning it off and then on again,' and barely tips her head in Garrus' direction when he speaks up.]

Just because you can put everything in your mouth now doesn't mean you should.

4 Kristin c:

[2leftfeet]

Another month, another jump; strange how routine can make anything seem normal. Though normal or not, coming out of the Tranquility's grav couches is still unpleasant, still leaves her feeling knock kneed and weak through her limbs, still has her gagging from the removal of the breathing tube.

She spends a few seconds orienting herself in space and then clambers to her feet in the slick puddle of fluids ejected from the stasis pod along with her. With a hand to the pod to steady herself, Shepard takes a moment to asses her own body (it's a habitual check list) and then shoves off. She heads down the long row of grav couches, past familiar and unfamiliar faces and toward the med bay and showers.

God, the promise of hot water sounds good right about now.

Re: 4 Kristin c:

[scarletparsalin]

The first thing he noticed, besides the obvious status of being covered in something slimy and cold, and the gagging from something being removed from his throat, was the fact that he was most definitely not in the council chamber, and where the hell did his clothes go. The last thing he remembered was telling Rhia to wait outside his chambers while he changed into the appropriate garb for the council meeting after their morning sparring match. He remembered pulling the heavy brocade over his shoulders, remembered fastening the clasps to attach the vast and, in his opinion, overwrought setting for the Heart of the Realm around his neck, staring for a moment at his beleaguered reflection in the mirror before opening the door and then--

That was where it cut off, where things got fuzzy. In the first moments of disorientation, he'd assumed the heavy resistance to movement were his robes, but then he'd been unceremoniously dumped onto a very cold, very metallic floor. It reminded him somewhat of the airship, or when they'd traveled to Autochthon... Shivering, reaching up and wiping the goo from his face, pushing dark hair back from his face, golden yellow eyes go wide. There were others. Many others.

Shaking a hand covered in goo with a look of disgust, he grips the first protrusion on the wall that seems sturdy enough to support him, and tugs himself upright, wavering as feet slide in the goo. There, she seemed to know what she was about...

"Excuse me," he says, voice cracking from whatever it was that was in his throat, no doubt, and he coughs, trying again, taking a half-step forward, acutely aware that he is wearing nothing but smallclothes as he catches her attention. "I seem to have taken a very wrong turn in the Palace... Where is this?"

let's do this thing

[totallytrustworthy]

Slipping away's easy enough: the crack of distant gunfire keeps her footsteps quiet, hard crackle of radio communication occupying enough of Flynn's attention that he and his men hardly notice her half the time. Lazarevic on the other hand isn't blind-- he just couldn't care less. Half a city between him and his prize and the same feverish obsession that's had him collecting more clippings than she can count doesn't look like it'll be letting up soon.

So long as she doesn't do anything stupid, they'll continue to be none the wiser.

And she's confident, but not stupid: waits to snap over the radio frequency till she's two blocks in the clear, keeps cover at her back and sides to muffle the sound of her voice. It's so foolproof that Chloe's not even attempting to press out a whisper as she clicks the radio on.

"You there, Nate?"

drumro-- breaks every drumstick

[socialclimber]

He'd ditched the jeep fifteen minutes ago - ran into a cross section of road piled so high with debris that the option was to either take a detour and stray way closer to Lazarevic's business than he was really planning to get, or go on foot. For better or worse, Nate gone with the second option after cannibalizing the car's radio. Made for some pretty crappy reception, but either it was working better than he'd thought or luck really was on his side because her message comes through: as crystal clear as anyone could hope for, you know, given the whole active war zone thing.

He keeps going, pace a steady trot and boots crunching on the gravel and debris - carnage from buildings built decades before he was ever born. There's this weird sensation that if he stops to chat, the conversation's not going to last long. So he radios back on the move:

"Yeah, I'm here but I'm coming in on foot."

sir walking disaster

[notstubborn]

wow ok that's kind of rude

[socialclimber]

There's a lot to be said about the miracles of modern international transportation but no matter how you slice it, it's still hard to get out of a tiny Tibetan village in the Himalayan Mountains. It involves a lot of attention to detail (or at least a vague idea of 'We'll take some yak this far and try not to get blown or bucked off the side of the mountain' and 'From here we'll hire a jeep to take us to this airstrip where we can hitch a ride on a cargo plane in exchange for helping them unload on the back end' and 'And from this point we'll take a bus to take a train to get to a real international airport and then we're home free!') that Nate frankly doesn't really have the patience for.

So it's a good thing that he's not the only brain working on this; if he was, they'd probably be stalled midway down a mountain right now - yaks don't like him. Something about his face? Whatever, it's a serious problem and it usually involves a lot of spit. As it is, he and Elena have got themselves a nice cushy ride on only somewhat rickety small aircraft that should get them as far as Mumbai. From there, he knows a guy (Sully knows a guy) that can get them back to the States. Get Elena back to the States.

--Look, it's all a little fuzzy and he's trying not to get ahead of himself here.

Braced against the side of the plane, Nate desperately tries to steady his journal across his knee so he can make a few notes. It's not easy with the plane shuddering, vibrating from low grade turbulence as they make their way South. How she can sleep in this is beyond him.

( shepard )

[sentinels]

[2leftfeet]

[The insomnia isn't new. Getting sleep before running through the Omega-4 Relay had been like pulling teeth; after coming back through, it had somehow been worse (there had been personnel drops to make, reports to write - if she was going back to the Alliance, she'd be as ready as she could for the questions that would inevitably come). Before that, after Horizon - not for any reason except for the imagined hum of internal hardware courtesy The Illusive Man and Miranda Lawson (is what Shepard's sure of; that she'd swear by); Saren and Illos, patrolling geth space knowing they weren't doing what needed to be done; after Akuze. Shepard can remember bouts of it at NSchool after running field exercises for 48 hours, when sleep should have been her body's first priority. At this point, she assumes it's hard wired. The loss of Thessia is just the newest iteration in a longstanding pattern.

Luckily it's an easy thing to keep quiet on the Normandy where the only thing dividing rack time from work time is a watch change. She spends nearly an hour down in the shuttle bay going over requisitions when she should be asleep without anyone seeming to be the wiser. In fact it's only when she makes her way up to the crew deck, intending to get herself a cup of burned coffee (Alliance, standard issue), that she starts to think it might've been better to just go crawl into the stack of paperwork she has waiting for her in her quarters.]

laughs at you

[growling]

ok this one's deep (get it it's a drowning joke)

[growling]

ok i'm done

[growling]

[allwar]

takes that very lovely prompt and then runs in the other direction idk what I'm doing

[firstsergeant]

[They say the war in Europe is over. Lipton writes a letter to his brother (it's the first letter that he's written in a very long time not because he didn't want to, but because the mail lines from the Ardennes were fractured at best and he hadn't really seen the point in it). He doesn't really say much in it, except that he's doing well and that the Alps are beautiful in the Spring. It's all true enough; Germany is stunning. It also intensely quiet in a way he doesn't know how to put a finger on.

It's not like Bastogne where the quiet meant something was about to fall on all their heads, but after months of being packed in by the enemy he knows how to manage that kind of stillness. Bertchesgarden is all gold up until the sun sets and the temperature drops and then the whoop of soldiers in the night is unsettling when a few months ago they had to whisper to each other in foxholes. They are all in the unique position of having nothing to do but sit and wait for someone up the chain to decide what to do with them and in the mean time Lipton's starting to feel-- antsy isn't the right word, but maybe distracted is a better one.

He has a pack of cards that he came into possession of after a night of hard drinking had left Harry Welsh unable to pick himself off the floor much less bits of cardstock off a table. He's armed with that instead of his M1 when he goes to track down Speirs in that room of his, stuffed full with looted silver and Nazi flags. He's at the door and has already knocked before he really thinks about the fact that Speirs may not be there at all or how he's not sure what game he's going to suggest with just two players.]

i have literally no idea if i can pull her off

[tranquilmanner]

Nate+ Charlie + Chloe + Yemen =

[totallytrustworthy]

FLIES BY THE SEAT OF MY PANTS

[cyphered]

"Ah, crap."

Sometimes, you just can't win 'em all. Sometimes you can't win any. It usually depends on the hand your dealt. Today, Nathan Drake learns that he's actually terrible at cards -- or at least he is when the proverbial card deck on the table involves his History with Yemen and its police force. No short-term memories in this town. Nate has no doubt there are no less than three fruit vendors after his head for messing with their stash the first time he had a run-through here.

Now, here he is, cornered and pressed against the wall down an alleyway waiting for danger to pass. No bullet wounds so far. At least he's winning that bet. He's losing the "this'll be a quick insy-outsy pick and run" bet though. He had not even made it half-way out before getting chased off course.

He waits until the next gaggle of militia runs by before picking up his radio.

"By the way, in case you two were thinking of heading south--" There's a distinct explosion nearby. "--don't."

slides in you know who this is for

[lafouldre]

wow this prompt more accurate than u even know ps setting this somewhere in ex or w/e because time??

[brittlest]

[What he missed most about magic was the ability to reach out - to tap into the energy felt sliding through the air: coursing after it like a hound after a fox. And now, here he is - the meat of the damned animal just beyond the grasp of his teeth (on top of everything else that's horribly off with this place). But it doesn't mean he can't feel it, can't sense it like breath on the back of his neck where he sits at his corner table--

--'his corner table', though he's only been in the city, the world even, for a few months time. He's never been the sort of man to leave things untaken--

--Or that he can't feel it when another magician (though he's learning that's not the proper term here, not for everyone) arrives at the small coffee house. It's not unlike what he thinks it must feel like to be a marginally pretty girl in a dance hall when the town's beauty arrives: all eyes turn elsewhere and there's simply nothing to be done about it. The woman with her blonde hair and her fine mouth is handsome enough to play the part; Michael finds himself hating her immediately.]