fandomtownies | The Magpie Emporium, Monday [29/8]

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The Magpie Emporium, Monday [29/8]

Vi had actually started off the day in a pretty good mood. Which, alas, didn't last very long once she'd actually started work, and started noticing the luggage. Battered steamer trunks and worn duffel bags all stained and spattered with bright, fluoro paint in a style she recognised right away, and all labelled with her own neat handwriting that she was not getting close enough to read.

Instead she focused on trying to neaten up the front counter while Little Bot tried valiantly to shift the massive electric blue trunk taking up quite a lot of the shop floor.

Man, she missed the pinecones right about now.

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The office was full of backpacks, rollaway suitcases, and (of course) hard-sided drum bags that were nicer than she'd ever actually been able to afford, all of them plastered within an inch of their lives with stickers and black-Sharpie graffiti in a style that Steph would identify anywhere. One glance, and she knew upon arriving with breakfast and coffee for the two of them that she wasn't going to be getting much work done in there today.

"You know," she said, rescuing the half-flattened plushie mimic from beneath a bass drum case that was part of a huge pile of drum cases all labeled ARCADIA BAY, "this has gotta suck for the newbies."

And them. It was also going to suck for them.

It was going to suck so bad that Vi didn't even bother greeting Steph before going for the hug. "Hey."

Just ignore the dice box labelled she can do better that clattered into existence on the counter behind her.

Steph had been accosted on her way into the Perk by an oversized suitcase labeled Hopeless Trainwreck of a Person (People Just Can't Look Away), so she didn't even have to ask. She just set their breakfast down, wrapped her arms around Vi and hugged her back, hard.

"Hi," she murmured.

Something that looked like a deluxe sourcebook boxed set narrowly missed Saffron as it poofed into existence, with She'll Find Better Than You Eventually stamped in gold leaf on its spine.

"I had something cool to tell you, but man..."

"I want you to tell me," Vi said, still pretty much clinging to her.

If nothing else, it would distract from all her vividly coloured luggage as well as the single dull grey box with 516 typed on it that was tucked in amongst them.

"Guess who got recruited by the squirrels for a regular weekly gig?" Steph asked, still holding onto her.

She wasn't going out of her way to try and read anything on Vi's luggage, but she wasn't making much of an effort to hide her own, either. Whatever shit the island wanted to make her air whether she liked it or not, she trusted Vi with it.

It wasn't like Vi hadn't at least mentioned most of the stuff written on hers to Steph, again, just ignore that dicebox. Or the fact the oldest looking bag, the stained and patched one with Mom and Dad stitched onto it, smelled faintly of smoke.

"Really? That's great!" Vi hadn't really stopped hugging Steph, but now it was a little less desperate. "You were awesome during the summer."

Steph hadn't mentioned a lot of hers either. Like the crate on top of her desk, with I Bail On People scribbled in Chloe's handwriting over whatever had originally been spray-stenciled on it.

...the smoke smell had caught her attention, though. And that bag made a sad but kind of fitting companion for the waterlogged one of her own that said Mom, sitting in a slowly growing puddle.

"It's going to be a fun first shift, with all of this shit going on," Steph said ruefully, looking at the clutter. "At least it's not just us?"

Vi held even tighter to Steph when she saw that one.

"Doesn't mean it stops sucking," she said, face pressed into the crook of Steph's neck.

Steph pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

"Correct. It still, in fact, fucking blows." Several tagged-up gear bags fell out of thin air into a haphazard pile, labeled Rita, ~~Fiona~~ Quentin, and -- awkwardly -- Violet, but luckily a larger one reading Izzie materialized atop them and obscured those labels. You know. Just to prove her point.

"But if this shit is going to happen, I'd rather it happen here with you instead of in front of some rando at the Perk who might get nosy about it."

Luckily Vi was a bit too focused to Steph to catch the one with her full name on it before it was obscured.

"Yeah," she agreed, pulling back just enough to look her in the eye. "I'm here if you want to talk, and if you don't."

Steph laughed sheepishly and rubbed at the back of her neck.

"Yeah, dumb shit happens when we don't talk, so if you want to ask about any of this stuff, I'm calling it fair game," she said.

A rusted-up metal toolbox encrusted in dirt, CHLOE AND RACHEL scrawled across its lid, appeared by the cash register. Huh. She'd kind of thought that one would be bigger than it turned out to be.

"You've got a point," Vi said. "Though I can tell you right now, that one-" she pointed at the sourcebook boxset, "-is a fucking lie."

As opposed to the dicebox which was completely accurate.

"I was going to say the same," Steph said wryly, indicating the dice box.

A badly scuffed, worn hard-sided suitcase with several boot prints on it rolled slowly out of the office and into view, revealing the THEY ALL LEAVE EVENTUALLY label fluttering off its handle like a banner.

"...yeah."

Vi actually glared at that one, much more so than her own similar you lose them all one that came complete with little doodles of Powder, Vander and the rest. "You know you're stuck with me, right?"

That was fine, because Steph was glaring at that one for her.

"We're stuck with each other. That's what we agreed," she said, reaching for Vi's hand; there was a particular kind of reassurance that came with interlinking their fingers that she wanted right now. "And I believe you. You know I do. It's just..."

She indicated those two particular bags of theirs.

"Hard to let go of those fears sometimes. I know you get it."

Vi gladly curled her fingers through Steph's.

"Yeah, I do," she said softly. "I don't have classes tomorrow, so I'll bring dinner over?"

"That would be amazing," Steph said, the tension in her shoulders relaxing a touch.

She glanced back at the ARCADIA BAY pile. Huh. Maybe it wasn't quite as big as she'd originally thought?

"I'm just glad you didn't take one look at how big my pile of shit is and have second thoughts."

"It's a date, then," Vi said, bringing their joined hands up so she could kiss Steph's knuckles.

"Mine's just as big, I knew what I was getting into," she added. "And I bet that if it was the good shit about you, we wouldn't even be able to get in the door."

Steph returned the favor by kissing Vi's knuckles, grinning at her over their hands.

"Shut up," she said, flipping off that dice box with her free hand for good measure. "You know, if nothing else... at least all of our luggage kind of goes together?"

"Guess it does," Vi agreed, leaning in to steal a kiss. "So you're saying no one else would have us?"

Absolutely no baggage to that effect appeared, because Vi honestly didn't care.

Were Steph privy to the narrative, she'd give Vi a hard time about stealing kisses that she could just ask for, but then again if the way she kept stealing Steph's clothes was any indication...

"They wish they could have us," she retorted, "because what girl wouldn't want to? They're just shit out of luck there."

Look, all kisses were good, but some were just better stolen.

"Because we've already got each other." Suck it, other girls.

Yeah, okay, that was fair.

"Please note," Steph said, handing her a coffee and a breakfast sandwich, "that I am still absolutely going to judge them for failing to appreciate your awesomeness."

It was the principle of the thing.

"Same," Vi said. After taking a bite of her sandwich. "It's like they don't have eyes or something."

"You are the most biased," Steph informed her cheerfully. "But also the cutest."

She glanced around the room at all the bags and trunks, with everything their labels implied.

"And you fucking blow me away, every single day."

"I think you mean you're the cutest," Vi said, blushing and pressing her face against Steph's shoulder. "And amazing, and incredibly cool, and you don't let shit stop you."

"Vi," Steph said seriously, her head turned so that her lips were brushing against Vi's temple, "You have the biggest heart of just about everyone I've ever known, and you when you care, you do it with every fucking fiber of your entire being. Fuck anyone who writes you off as someone undeserving, just because you might not live up to their image of what that means. You're badass, and determined, and when you commit, you fucking commit."

A Scared of Commitment overnight duffel thumped to the floor beside the loose dice bin, knocking over a displacer kitty.

This wasn't helping with the blushing. "I like the person you make me sound like," she said, as wrote self off early landed on the other side of the displacer kitty. "And you're easy to commit to."

For a second, Steph thought of that tank top with its white scale.

A cymbal bag materialized standing on its edge and somehow managed to roll over toward her; when it bumped into her foot it tipped over and landed to reveal Doesn't Deserve This scribbled on it and underlined twice. It was followed shortly by a matching one labeled Inadequate Partner.

"GM voice is off," Steph said gently, kissing the side of her head. "I'm describing the person I know and love, not some made-up character. Promise."

Just ignore the noise as Vi kicked those bags away with great force.

"I believe you," she said. "I'm trying to, at least."

That gesture earned Vi a smile and another kiss to the temple.

"Yeah," Steph said. "I'm trying too."

She picked up a stray d12 and winged it at Vi's wrote self off early bag, where it did absolutely nothing upon impact except make her feel slightly better.

Hey, it also made Vi feel slightly better. "Guess we'll keep trying together then."

Steph slid both arms around her waist to pull her as close as she could.

"There's nobody else I'd rather be a hot fucking mess with."

Vi had pretty much no objections to that. "Me either," she said, returning the hug.

Edited 2022-09-01 00:35 (UTC)

Steph relaxed into her, smiling despite having a pretty extensive view of exactly how much baggage -- seriously, island, what the hell -- they had between the two of them.

"Thanks for loving the disaster that is me."

"Always," Vi assured her, smiling back, because she'd much rather focus on Steph than their extensive baggage. "Nothing's going to change that."

Steph's gaze flicked over to the THEY ALL LEAVE EVENTUALLY bag, but it seemed to shrink just the tiniest bit as she concentrated on Vi's words.

"Right, I'm never getting rid of you, even if I wanted to," she said with a laugh that started out shaky but steadied out. "Which I very definitely don't."

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The Magpie Emporium, Monday [29/8]

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