[IC Inbox | Meadowlark]

[lifetothefullest]

@lance.sweets | ■ ▲ ◌ ▼

Comments

@kyna.medina

[evocation]

hey
quick question
are you secretly a serial killer?

[lifetothefullest]

No, but I was once arrested under suspicion of being one, if that counts.

[Is he still occasionally salty about this? Maybe.]

@nathan.drake

[nonscriptum]

please tell me you didn't get eaten by a giant snake or something

[lifetothefullest]

I'm fine, Nate. I've been at Red Wings most of the time.

[Most.]

Where are you? Are you okay?

day, like, 1.5 of the new roomie situation

[wittingly]

[ Behold the elegance of man, for he is truly a majestic and dignified creature.

Rather, Ian thought everyone was out so he didn't bother putting a shirt on after the shower, his hair's dripping wet, he has earphones on over either ear and he's doing a particularly mediocre rendition of 4 Non Blondes with nary a speck of shame.

Aforementioned creature is flipping pancakes when Lance comes in, he doesn't realize he has company until he's right there in visual range. Ian visibly startles, and this would be the time when any rational human being would take the headphones off and feel some sort of embarrassment at having been caught unawares.

Not this dumb ass, who just points the spatula at Lance and passionately appeals via song: ]

I said hey, what's going on- !

[lifetothefullest]

[Lance is not, generally, a huge fan of living with other people.

Of course he has, over time, but typically prefers to be alone or with a girlfriend, and occasionally other friends. He'd lived alone most of his time in Hadriel, and had come to particularly enjoy it, but he hadn't been about to turn down Kyna's offer here and that's been working out.

And although he doesn't in theory have any issue with the idea of Ian staying here for a time--he's Kyna's friend and he needs somewhere to live until he can figure something else out--Lance has still been making an effort to avoid him. Nothing against Ian specifically, just that Lance likes his space and besides, he has things to do and so has been able to find convenient excuses to be out.

But he's returned home briefly for some food, which is why he wanders into the kitchen to be greeted by... Quite a scene. A funny scene, but still, and he raises his hands slightly in a show of apology for startling Ian, and indeed he expects him to take off his headphones.

Instead, the serenade prompts Lance to roll his eyes even while he has to resist the urge to return the next line of the song, but then something occurs to him--]

Wait, are you actually listening to that?

[Is he assuming the volume is low enough Ian can hear him? Yes. Is this a wise assumption? Who knows.]

action

[evocation]

[Kyna spends a probably unnecessary amount of time locked in her room, hopelessly overwhelmed. There's about a thousand notifications on her stupid implant, the UI of which is utterly disorienting after a year without it, and she has to force herself to accept the fact that she was gone a year, but not. There's a total dissonance in time that she struggles to reconcile.

And then, of course, there's the loss of her magic. She accepts it more readily this time, but it's still a blow. Kyna feels totally disconnected again, like being rendered suddenly deaf or blind.

But she does force herself out after a half hour or so. She simultaneously hopes Lance is here and dreads the potential questions. What the hell is she supposed to say?

It isn't like the apartment is large, though, so she spots him almost instantly, with a concerning mountain of muffins on the kitchen counter. Is he... stress baking?]

Lance?

[lifetothefullest]

[Getting used to baking without the usual ingredients wasn't particularly challenging, though it did take a few tries before he really got the hand of the require proportions and adjustments to cook times and that sort of thing. So it had just been more excuse to keep making more muffins, and nevermind that he absolutely doesn't need that many muffins, because whatever; he can foist them off on Nate if necessary.

Most importantly, baking gives him something to do, just like compiling the information document had; the more distracted he is, the less he can worry about the multitude of things that are upsetting him. One of those things, unbeknownst to him, has just wandered into the kitchen while he has his back turned, half paying attention to the ingredients he's measuring out and the half his attention turned toward going through comments on the network.

And then he hears a voice and jumps, whirling toward the sound, and--]

You're back.

[It's a perfect mix of surprise and relief, because he'd hoped for this outcome, but he's known better than to expect it. But as glad as he is that she's return, he immediately has to ask--]

Are you okay?

[If she was in her world after all, who knows what might have happened, and he's heard from the people he's known who have left and returned that the entire situation can be very disorienting even if nothing terrible happened.]

@kyna.medina

[evocation]

hey
uh
are you busy?

[lifetothefullest]

No, what's up?

@ren.amamiya

[variate]

Kyna told me that you were angry with what happened at Riverstone.
If you want to take that out on someone, it should be on me.

[lifetothefullest]

Why is that?

@kyna.medina

[evocation]

hey
are you going to be back soon?

[lifetothefullest]

Probably.

[He's tired and doesn't really have anywhere else to be, even if he want to be purposefully avoiding going home, which he's not sure he does.]

@ellie.miller

[notathreat]

You like music?

[lifetothefullest]

[He typically replies to messages he receives very quickly, but he also knows himself well enough to know when he should take a step back. So after the casino, and then the conversation with Kyna, he finds a hotel and crashes for awhile.

So it's probably around noon the next day before he manages to respond to anything, and for once he's really glad this is only text.]

I do, yeah. Why?

@goro.akechi

[impede]

[The incoming messages come one after another. Akechi had already been ready to tap Cassius for more clarification. The fact that Lance implied that he would give Akechi that job irritates him, so he decides to go the extra mile.

Of course, they all come so quickly, each individually handled, all so that Lance can't get a word in. It was, in fact, a scheduled send.]

Rather than leave you empty-handed, I thought it best to be rather thorough. After all, you hate making conclusions based on obvious connections and assumptions that are available. It's better to be argumentatively useless. All the same, here's everything he's ever sent to us.

The good thing is that we can verify that it comes from him.

Oh, one more thing before I begin, his own words for sending all of this (specifically after asking if it was for the game, to see what we could do, or if he had other designs):

For hundreds of years I was trapped.
Then you show up. I saw it as an opportunity to do something where I normally wouldn't be.
The probability that you would follow what I sent was in my favor, if only by a fraction.
So I took it.

Enlightening, isn't it?

[impede]

File Attachment 001:
[ There's a clipping of short E-Mails that are attached. When opened, they begin mid-sentence and don't provide much context. They seem to be between candidate Katelin Jovavich and someone with the initials "JPG" meeting for lunch in the business district of New Amsterdam. They mention the terraforming projects, and Jovavich's aggressive pursuit to expand to Jupiter's moons, Jupiter II and Jupiter IV, despite the uninhabitable conditions. JPG teases that "she's not going to find what she's looking for." ]

A few notes:

JPG here refers to Johann P. Grey. Katelin Jovavich was a former candidate for governor in New Amsterdam, and my former employer.

Jovavich's death was likely caused by interrogation by Tsera Vel, where Tsera directly asked Jovavich about her ties to Johann P. Grey. That she died afterward isn't surprising.

I believe you'd call this something that lacks evidence, wouldn't you? But the interrogation happened in the simulation right after Quentin's mistake. It was a way of pushing through her line of questioning before everything went to hell.

But we're not arguing this in the court of law. We're simply looking at what's available to us.

@ian.fowler

[wittingly]

Hey man
How you holdin up

[ Don't mind him, just a little 'we both got roasted' solidarity check-in. ]

[lifetothefullest]

[He appreciates that Ian cares to check on him, especially since they spoke the day before, but he has absolutely no idea what to say at this point. He could tell the truth, but that involves getting into so much. He could lie, but that would also be pretty obvious.

A blend is going to go better, he just has to figure out how far to go each way.]

I've been better, but I appreciate the concern.

@stephen.strange

[rehandle]

[ It's not the best timing. The recent batch of new arrivals has tipped him over the edge of a long-looming precipice and Lance has had his own mess brewing on the network. They're both likely to be volatile.

But Gaby's message is clear and there are still a handful more days left for him to cause disruptions. More than anything, it feels like a knife in the back of a tentative, brokered peace. Stephen had thought they'd come to a compromise on this - offer up some ideas on viable alternative solutions and we'll see about introducing them in time.

He's had no word back from Lance. Instead, this. So what's the point in further discussion? ]

You and I need to talk. Now.

[lifetothefullest]

[He's in absolutely no mood for this, on top of the multitude of over things that have gone wrong in the past two days or so--he's lost track of time--and although he might've handled this differently in another situation, right now the response he gives is simple--]

I'm not interested.

@nathan.drake

[nonscriptum]

apparently i'm your handler now, which is a turn of events i definitely did not foresee.

[lifetothefullest]

Who would've thought that between us I'd be the troublemaker?

[...Him, maybe, if he'd thought about it much, but still.]

@wade.wilson

[ishotyouuu]

hey so ur roommates now crashing w/ us and im not supposed 2 bug her but nobodys telling me wtfs going on????

mind shedding a light on this bc im kinda sick of being out of the loop by now

[Definitely not helping his chronic and extreme FOMO, that's for sure.]

[lifetothefullest]

[He's so tired and drunk enough that all he can think about when he gets this message is how stupid it is that apparently neither he nor Kyna are at their apartment. It's just empty. Perfectly good and empty. God they're both stupid.

But he does manage not to say that.]

We had an argument, but that's all.

[Nothing to be horribly concerned about; it was an intense argument and they're both hurt by it, but nothing worse.]

@liketheweapon | Aerie AU event inbox

[lifetothefullest]

@jyn.erso

[realists]

[ she doesn't even know if he's awake on earth yet (though she sure watched him die, live on tv, before she promptly walked the fuck away — not even another universe could give her a taste for gratuitous violence) but maybe she's hoping he isn't and will never see this! oh, jyn. ]

How many times do you think is too many to die?

[lifetothefullest]

[This is not exactly a message he's expecting to receive, but it isn't necessarily an unwelcome one either. The more people who return the better, even if the method is one he wishes they weren't having to go through.]

I'd be inclined to say 'one', if it's one you remember.

[And not, you know, the natural one that's supposed to happen to everyone. Remembering your death, even once, is too much as far as he's concerned.]

@ian.fowler

[wittingly]

hey man, if you haven't already can you like
check on nate
I get the feeling the whole thing today probably hit him pretty hard

[lifetothefullest]

Yeah, I'll check on him, don't worry.

Though I don't think he'd be opposed to hearing from you, either.

[Just saying. If Ian's up for trying to reach out.]

@samuel.drake

[withmeinparadise]

hey. you back in your apartment?

[lifetothefullest]

I'm staying there again, but I'm not there right now. Is something wrong?

@castiel.winchester

[unwings]

[ welp, he rarely gets the chance to apologize to people he's killed (or assisted in killing (or stood by and watched die from dean's hand)), so while it's sure to be incredibly uncomfortable or outright rejected, he respects lance far too much to dodge it.

but he's not about to show up on the dude's doorstep uninvited, so, ill-fitting as "sorry you got stabbed" is over text, here we go. ]

An apology isn't nearly enough for what you suffered. Still, you're owed one, if you're willing to hear it from me.

[lifetothefullest]

[It's been so unpredictable who has returned when, so he's never really expecting these sorts of messages when he gets them. Still, as soon as he sees the notification pop up he takes a moment to open it, especially upon seeing Castiel's name.

He isn't totally sure what he's expecting, since he really hadn't seen Castiel in the quarry; he'd presumed he was probably legitimately nearby, even if Dean's comments about him were a ruse, but Lance hadn't really thought much about Castiel's part in anything. So although the sentiment is very nice, and appreciated--]

You don't need to apologize.

[He'd told Dean pretty much the same thing, although not in those exact words, and he means it. This Castiel is not the one in the Aerie, and even if he were, what happened was a matter of survival. Lance isn't going to hold that against him.

But he also doesn't want this to come across as a rejection, and sometimes it's most important for the person giving the apology to do so than it is for the person who's receiving it to hear it, so after just a moment he follows up on the message.]

I'm out in the city helping with what's going on. Where are you?

action; the day after wash returns from the aerie

[hardwearing]

[ Wash spent all of the night he returned with Carolina, surprising no one, but the next day he decides to check in on the people he knows who've come back. He doesn't think of Lance right off the bat, but after sending a few messages and finding out who's still in New Tokyo, he heads to Red Wings.

Lance is the first one he sees, and he heads over almost shyly to say hello. Everyone who's back from the Aerie has certainly seen some kind of fresh trauma and he's never been amazing at handling that, but is willing to try. ]

Hey. How've you been?

[lifetothefullest]

[Lance has just finished talking to a native citizen who had needed some help and direction, and had gotten them settled in for a meal and a little bit of a break before they move onto a more permanent place that can help them. So he's taking a brief break himself, leaning on the bar and sipping some herbal tea while he tries to decide what to do next.

He hears Washington approaching and looks up, thinking he might be another person who needs some assistance, but no it's someone he actually knows and that's a welcome surprise. Lance offers a faint smile of greeting, and a bit of a shrug at the actual question.]

About as well as I can be, all things considered. What about you? How long have you been back?

@goro.akechi

[impede]

Are your friends truly so sensitive that raising a concern that needs to be brought up is cause for attack, chaos, and eventually an even more obnoxious idiot of an adult entering the fray?

Perhaps you should consider how it is that you present yourselves. I'm meant to be the pariah around here. But soon, people will catch on to your bullshit.

[lifetothefullest]

You're going to have to be more specific about what you're upset with me for this time.

Welcome back, by the way.

@cassian.andor

[evasives]

I was using your guide to follow up on things I have missed in the Aerie, and I noticed something else - Kurt Fisher's status is not unknown.

Cassius located him alive in New Beijing while New Amsterdam was under Judas's simulation, and a group of us broke into the UNA base to record proof. We used the footage to put out the message that the UNA lied about Morningstar killing him, and alongside the knowledge that they had Judas, it aided in their destabilization. I can get you copies of the videos, they were in circulation for a while.

We left him there, so unless he was then killed for real, it's likely he remains alive.

[lifetothefullest]

That's really useful to know, thank you. So it was all propaganda, basically? And the public was made aware of this?

I would like that, thank you. I'll also make edits to the document in the next day or so to add all of this.

[He'd do it now but he's in the middle of about four things, because life here is ridiculous right now, welcome back to this mess.]

@gaby | morningstar network

[vns]

Let me make one thing clear, since you were confused about safehouse ownership and who's "in charge."

• I gave your group a choice a while back. It sounds like you would make a different choice.

• You like references. Here was that choice.

That made me the person who decides who comes and goes from the safehouse, who has the Morningstar accesses to revoke to keep people safe. That doesn't make me in charge. That's just me doing my job.

But if you keep at trying to make people the enemy of Morningstar, I will make one thing abundantly clear: we will be done. No more safehouses. No more Red Wings. No more identities. No more stipends. No more secure network that conceals all of your correspondence from the rest of the world. We will pull our support from the Displaced because it seems to be what you're demanding.

We are not the enemy. We're a small organization and I gave you special access to my friends so you could make a more conscientious choice. Instead, you're throwing a constant tantrum.

Talk to the whole group about what you intend to do. How you intend to fuck everyone over because of your selfish crusade. Not just your friends. Your allies. Everyone.

This isn't a conversation. Don't expect a reply from me.

@stephen.strange

[rehandle]

[ They're going to have to speak with one another eventually. Had he thought it would be this soon? Flogging this same, tired old horse? No. But it may as well be now, because one way or another, he won't be doing this again. ]

You're alienating the people you'll need to help you if you want to make a change that maintains our current relationships. Stop it or don't. The consequences of that choice will be all of ours.

[lifetothefullest]

[He'd wondered if this would happen again; after all, last time there had been this conflict Stephen had messaged him, and it's an easy guess that he's being sent to play damage control. On one hand, Lance almost feels bad for him, but then on the other he really doesn't.

He hadn't been quite sure how he was going to handle whenever he did speak with Stephen again after the Aerie, but he'd intended to be as patient and understanding as possible. Neither of those are things he really feels like being at the moment, but the intention--and the fact that his emotional response is still very muted--at least keeps his response from being as scathing as it might've otherwise been.

But that isn't saying a lot.]

Don't worry, I'm well aware of what happens when you challenge authority.

@ian.fowler

[wittingly]

hey man

[lifetothefullest]

Hey. How have you been doing?

@ellie.miller

[notathreat]

[El's post and Lance virtually dropping off the network is far from hard to put together, but Ellie still takes a day or so before she reaches out, hating this.

She never knows what to do when she feels like she's been less than a stellar friend. Never gets any easier.]

Hey. Still kicking around?

[lifetothefullest]

[That she reaches out at all is more than enough for him, since he isn't really expecting anything and she's still more than shown that she cares in their last few encounters.

It's also just a relief to get a message alert and not have it be someone yelling at him about something.]

In what's surely to the dismay of some, yes.

How are you doing?