fandomtownies | Fandom Post Office, May 21 (Tuesday)

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Fandom Post Office, May 21 (Tuesday)

Éponine's strange mood (all right, stranger than usual) from the past couple of days hadn't quite abated. If she was more focused today, it was because she was more sober, which meant that she was also noticeably moodier.

Largely, this meant that all her free time during her shifts behind the counter consisted of staring blankly into space and frowning, then snapping abruptly to attention with a muttered curse to busy herself doing something mindless and unnecessary (like straightening shelves that didn't need to be straightened) for a few frenetic minutes before she lapsed back into sullen, if pensive, silence.

While the post office was open today, the odds of getting personable service weren't terribly high.

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Probably the less off-putting option.

Unless you'd rather be weirded out.

Edited 2013-05-21 16:37 (UTC)

"'Sup, Buttercup?" Hello, Éponine. Here's today's random distraction.

"Oh, hello," Éponine greeted her, if a bit diffidently. It was a distraction from pulling all the Priority Mail envelopes out of their shelf and putting them back in again one by one for the fourth time, certainly. She was still scowling, but her expression had softened a tiny bit. "Come to see how I earn my meals, now? S'pose that's fair, only I haven't anything to offer you to drink."

"Heh. Am I allowed behind the counter to look official instead?" Kenzi grinned, jumping up on the counter in question. "I'm working at the Diner too now, tomorrow. You should come by."

Well, watch Éponine light up just a bit at the prospect of food. Just for a second, and then her face darkened again, but still.

"Come back here if you like, I don't care," she answered, waving a hand. "But you're still at Caritas as well, aren't you? Good lord, you must like keeping busy."

"Yup!" Kenzi swiveled around and hopped down behind the counter with Éponine, looking at everything. "Well, it's not like I have that much more to do. I gotta stop by the theater too, but. That's a lot more erratic. And dude, I'm so gonna need the cash, you know?" She started playing with the label-maker, THUNK THUNK THUNK.

That label-maker was fun to play with; Éponine found it incredibly entertaining when she was in a better mood.

"Yes, I suppose so." Sorry, Kenzi, she wasn't trying to be hostile; it just came out snippy. "It's never quite enough, is it? Always something new to pay for, and it's all just ridiculous, is what it is."

Maybe if you were more careful with your money, Éponine . . .

"C'est la vie." You should know that one, Éponine. "What's got you in a mood? Gremlins? Home repairs? Boy trouble? Girl trouble?"

Éponine burst out laughing, not that there was any mirth whatsoever in the sound; it was closer to snarling than anything else.

. . . that was probably a little unsettling.

"I could happily wish every last goddamned gremlin on this island to hell."

So . . . yes.

"Oh, jeez. What'd they do to you?" Kenzi had caught part of the Radio broadcast, but the part that stuck in her mind was Bo doing karaoke. "Does this need chocolate?" She might have M&M's on her somewhere.

"What's chocolate got to do with anything?" asked Éponine, genuinely confused on that point, but she waved a hand dismissively. "Anyhow, it doesn't matter now."

She'd spent far too long hiding any signs of vulnerability; it was going to be a very hard habit to break.

"Because it's way easier to deal with Island weirdness with regular injections of booze and chocolate. Or both." Oh yay, Reeses Pieces! Kenzi spilled some out on the counter for Éponine. "Dude, whatever it was, it happens to everyone. And to the Skywalkers more. I met Topher 'cause he and Tony were hallucinating they were big game hunters in the snow, going after imaginary crocodiles."

Well, the booze part she had wrapped up. The chocolate -- that might offset it. Never one to turn down offers of free food, Éponine swiped a handful of the candy and eased one piece at a time between her fingers, clutching the rest in a protective grip.

"All the same, I don't think I like it." Apparently she was a little too in the groove of feeling sorry for herself, another hard habit to break. "Never mind that, though."

She was terrible at deflecting. It didn't stop her from trying.

"What in hell was going on last week, anyhow? All those people bothering me with strange messages, and most of them not making any sense at all."

Cheer up, emo French chick. Kenzi is here! Deflection and distraction a specialty!

Kenzi snickered and threw a candy in the air, catching it in her mouth. "Ahh, the lines got messed up. Somewhere something got crossed or burned or who the hell knows, virus'd, and everybody's calls went to the wrong people. It happened here a couple years ago, too. Kinda inevitable, when you think of all the places people are calling from."

. . . Kenzi did remind her of Gavroche in some ways. That was interesting. And new.

"Of course," Éponine said, resignedly (and cramming the last of her increasingly melty handful of Reese's into her mouth). "It's likely just a matter of time before that happens to the mail, I expect."

And wasn't that a thrilling prospect.

"That ought to explain why most of those messages were so stupid," she said with the extra vehemence of someone annoyed about not realizing they hadn't really been for her. "Did you have trouble with them too?"

Kenzi nodded with her mouth full, swallowed a few pieces, then said, "Mostly with people I called not having got my messages. But I got one or two weird propositions too, and a few outraged calls from people who had been weirdly propositioned. It was hilarious." Here, have some more candy! "Dunno about the mail, but Portalocity got all kinds of hosed up a year ago. Two years ago? Two years ago," Kenzi confirmed to herself. "Nobody could go anywhere, practically. What's this thingy do?" Don't touch that, Kenzi.

"Oh, that?" It was a postage scale, but mailing to multiple dimensions as it did meant that Fandom's postage scales measured in multiple esoteric weight units. Éponine wandered over to it and poked a button, covering up her slight grimace at the mention of Portalocity. "I'm not sure, really. I haven't had any occasion to use it, yet."

"Enh. So you're justifiably bored. We need to get you an iPhone or an iPod to entertain yourself during down-times with." Kenzi kicked her legs against the cabinet. "And, you need to come by Luke's tomorrow for food. That place has a freezer the size of Antarctica, I am not kidding you. We can make anything."

"I've got one!" Éponine visibly brightened, and pulled her iPhone out of her pocket. "I've yet to figure out half of what it does, but there you go."

It was almost pathetic how proud she was of owning something that fancy, but at least it had lightened her mood for the time being.

"All right, very well, I'll stop in if I can."

"You do that," Kenzi said, throwing another Reese's Piece at her. "And here, gimme that. I'm going to get you some of the better games. You deserve to be sucked in and addicted like the rest of us."

Éponine looked at her dubiously, but handed the phone over anyway -- and surreptitiously moved into a position slightly better suited to making a grab for her phone just in case Kenzi decided to try and run off with it.

"I've no idea whether that's a good thing or not, the way you say it."

"Trust me, if you're going to be stuck behind a counter for hours with nada to do, you want the distraction that makes you miss how many hours you've been here," Kenzi counseled, getting several games including ~~Meta for~~ Bejeweled, Glitch and Forge of Empires on there. "Ha. There. Knock yourself out." She hopped off the counter and pointed at Éponine. "Food tomorrow, dude!"

"Yes, yes, all right, you don't need to carry on about it!" Éponine wasn't nearly as put out as her phrasing might make it appear; she was actually laughing just a bit. "Heavens, as if I need to be convinced to eat!"

How did it get to be this late in May already? I FORBID IT.

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Fandom Post Office, May 21 (Tuesday)

Mod Your Post Office [5/21]

Talk to Éponine [5/21]

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OOC [FPO, 5/21]