regret update: regretting

original character.

[saltn]

valleyfolk:

     “Mmh.” He’s looking for his lighter and can’t find it. He pats down his jeans, digs his hand into every pocket of his coat, and comes up empty. Before he replies, he takes the cigarette out from between his teeth and pinches it between his index finger and his thumb. “Good, actually. Strangely enough.”

That is kind of strange, she thinks, because Cain said so and Maika likes to think she has nothing else to go on. She has no lighter. This is a spectacle. “Like... did it go down easy?”

[saltn]

@valleyfolk

   “How’d it go in Mexico?”

[thewowsignal2026]

Don’t say ‘what’, Dixon, when she comes in callin’ you a fuckhead!

[bonnmot]

@saltn

‘You and me have got a mutual friend,’ he says, unintentionally blowing cigarette smoke up to her face. Their friend described Maika well enough and often enough for Ari to have some confidence in approaching her, he might come across as over-confident because of this.

[saltn]

Oh, so, everything goes.    “Y -- mh.” In her own time, she coughs, and has the decency to do it in her elbow. But it hits hard. She’s a little red-eyed turning back.

You never realize how many people you know until you have to figure which one put a hit on you. “Sorry, that was uh... sorry, who?” Metaphorically speaking.

[saltn]

hunterhenderson:

The answer is yes, Hunter rides out to meet Maika shortly after, he was already in the car. 

People get murdered and shit outside. She watches out her window for a minute, which does not face the street, then waits the last half in the lobby. People probably get murdered in shitty block lobbies too but like, roll the odds.    “Warm.” she notes astutely with the shotgun door close. It’s 30ºF outside. “Damn, you got here quick. You weren’t like stalking me, right.”

[ghostofwhosleft]

sc @saltn 

He’s still not sure how he got here, or how long he’s been there. But he’s stopped worrying about that as he launches another skeeball up the alley. Turns out skeeball is a skill he has. He’s smiling as the tickets come out, his pocket jingling with excess change as he crouches down to satisfyingly tear the tickets out, one hand reaching up to put some hair behind his ear. It’s dyed black, doesn’t feel ‘correct’ but feels comfortable as he hops over the neon-washed carpet to the desk where the prizes are. 

He leans on the counter confidentially, his body solid and real as he addresses the brunette behind the desk, reading the name tag with an ease anyone who has worn a million different name has as he says, “Hello, Maika what can I get for 850 tickets?” The number of tickets tells Adam he’s probably been in this place for a while. The change in his pocket tells him he will be here for a while more.

[saltn]

She’s spritzing that flower fresh shit they spray in bowling shoes on her tights. Sometimes the nozzle puffs too widely and she can taste the untasteable, but she’s fairly certain that it doesn’t taste like lavender.

   “Uhm.” Maika coughs. God it tastes bad, but that’s just the penalty for putting off laundry day.    “Short of like, the building? Uh...” That wasn’t so funny but she’s laughing when she drops out of sight, kneeling down behind the counter to scan the prize list taped under the desk. The paper’s browning everywhere but on the four corners conserved by sellotape. “YEAH, the maths down here tell me you could pretty much like, pay off your mortgage with that many.”

A cursory check proves Adam hasn’t fully climbed over the counter, so she pops back up, hoping his elite whack-a-mole instincts won’t get the better of him. Maika shoulders a shrug at the display. “Anything you want, you got.”

[saltn]

bonnmot:

She’s not far enough away to be inconspicuous at all. He practically felt the breeze as she swept her hair around. “You heard, huh? It’s alright.” He can’t do much about the news than accept it as it continues to play. The report contains the all important buzzwords that attest to his innocence. If she doesn’t wish to talk, he understands. 

The ‘fuck?’ gets out from under her just quick enough for passing waitress Jamie to catch it and give a tennis match look between Brady and Maika, before deciding -- Jay, this isn’t your problem. Maika turns fifteen minutes back on her barstool, and still only looks over her shoulder. She points inwards at ‘who me?’ questioningly. He could have been talking to Jamie, maybe.

[oliviadumhan]

[bonnmot]

@saltn

He doesn’t feel embarrassed for asking the owner of this mom ‘n’ pop diner to turn down their piped-in radio. Pop was obliging, didn’t seem to recognise Brady even as the radio news was trying to remind him. He didn’t change the channel as Brady hadn’t asked for that. Silence would be worse.

He sits near the window with his back to the counter, taking his time with the lunch he’s bought.

[saltn]

She went to high school with his little brother. Maika doesn’t know that -- but she thinks she knows his face, and with her limited scope of the world, she imagines, it’s gotta be something like that. He’s not old enough to be her dad, she couldn’t have been in school with his son. He could have been a mature student in a class she wasn’t paying attention in. He could be absolutely no one. He could be catching her eye. She turns away in a dash, conspicuously fast, tightens her knees under the diner counter. If there ever was someone trying to look like they aren’t staring -- this is the one, with all her hair whipping after her.

[saltn]

jungianthing:

     “One of my sphincters? There’s multiple sphincters?” Imminent death forgotten, he sits up properly. His back hurts still but that’s beside the point. If there’s a sphincter on his body he doesn’t know about he wants to be informed. “I thought there was only one. The sphincter.”

   “Like, yeah, isn’t it, it’s like -- ?” For a second she’s simply made a circular OK gesture with her fingers, but then Maika applies the universally understood hold on i’m googlin it posture.    “A sphincter is a circular muscle that normally maintains constriction of a natural body passage... etcetera etcetera...” Oh! “There are over 60 types in the human body! Fuck, I’ve never been so excited about sphincters before. So yeah, they’re like, the airlocks of your guts.”

[jungianthing]

@saltn

     He stretches, luxuriously.

     “I am fucking bored to death.”      He groans.      “And my back hurts.”      Maybe because he’s lying on the hockey table. He won’t admit that.      “I’m dying.”

[saltn]

How is this not getting her fired. Why does she wish this would get her fired. “You probably have a puck up one of your sphincters. Like, the asshole one, most likely.”

[saltn]

sequencekillers:

     “Right. Psychology, not medical, so I can’t diagnose any strange boils.” Her eyes flick sidelong to Maika. “Not that I think you have any strange boils. Why?”

It’s really not that special to be walking next to somebody.    “No like, it’s just cool. I think usually I only meet doctors on the job.” Is that bad? It’s not bad to go to a doctor. Everyone does. Is it bad to share? Mom said never to discuss your health records and politics in public. “And most of them are dudes.”

[walkindvde]

@saltn

Little boxes made of ticky-tacky, look at them fall away. The dirt, the dust, the open air. All of that, rushing past, the past is rushing by. 

Here she is, same girl, some other girl. The landscape is hers to shape if he doesn’t get his hands on it first. 

[saltn]

She’s got Bacardi, but something tells her you’re not meant to drink it. Like it’s something that needs to be watered down first. This party sucks. She’s tired in the legs, grabbing blindly at his collar without looking. “Hey -- I wanna go home.”

[saltn]

bunburie:

     A pause to consider it. “You know, you’re absolutely right.” She is. He sits down in his chair and manages to make it look like he found at least the one specific comfortable spot on it, because he’s practically reclining. “But I’d at least feel better if I maybe ordered a pizza or something. Eight Kit Kats do not a meal make.”

   “Eight Kit Kats and a pizza’ll make me vom,” so maybe she shouldn’t have eight Kit Kats. Damn, has he just dissuaded her from eating eight Kit Kats by way of pizza? God knows is this a better alternative on any possible level, but it’s some impressive rhetoric. “I’m not gonna object to you ordering a pizza if you’re having some. ‘least pretend I’m not a pig.”

[saltn]

sequencekillers:

     “Technically, but if you come with me they won’t turn you away.” God, she hadn’t even noticed it was raining. Being down in the basement is like being in a sensory deprivation tank. “C’mon, I haven’t eaten yet.”

Her shoulders are dusted with rain but it doesn’t show -- when she chanced her arm out it was just the kind of drizzle that seeps you into a gradient. Her hair might have dewdropped. It’s gotten worse since then. She walks in step with Wendy, more or less, with squeakier but softer-landing shoes. “So you’re like, a doctor, right? You’re Doctor Carr?”

[saltn]

@hunterhenderson

   8.27pm, in october, when it’s dark outside: can u drive me somewhere

[saltn]

sequencekillers:

     “Hi, Maika.” Her only destination right now is to a coffee machine – one that isn’t in the basement, to get out of reach of Holden’s arrogant, irritating malaise – so she doesn’t mind slowing down to a stop. “Lost? It’s confusing in here, I get lost all the time.”

That’s all, folks.

Has Wendy wondered about her like she’s wondered for Wendy? Picked shirts just in case she runs into Wendy? Had the most mundane fantasies wondering what brand of butter would I be picking, if I was picking butter with Wendy?

   “Kinda, uh,” she coughs into her autumn-sniffled sleeve, “It’s raining sheets outside, figured I could kill time with some soup before gettin’ the bus. Is the cafeteria like, staff only?”