gunsforhire | (no subject)

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(no subject)

Who: Roxy, anyone
What: A certain day
Where: The coffee shop that keeps seeing a lot of shit
When: April 13, mid-morning to mid-afternoon
Warnings: Depression over dead friends?

She hated time travel.

Everytime time travel was brought up, it was a reminder. Calliope was in her future. Jane and Jake were in her past. Her mom would know everything that happened to her and help her despite her also being in the past. Time travel was just a reminder that everyone was far away.

And today, today it was April 13th. Jane's birthday. The day she "left" her world only to arrive here almost a month and a half earlier. It almost feels like it happened that way just so she could see the date glaring at her.

Today was supposed to be a good day. It was supposed to be a celebration of Jane's sweet sixteen. It was supposed to be a party with all their friends as their youngest finally reached the milestone and it was going to have cake and be great.

Instead it was the day they all died.

And Roxy? Roxy was a sentimentalist in her heart. So while she heard about the cloud coming, she still went out to get a cake. With cyan icing and one of those sixteen candles. She got a weird looks, it's not like cake packages were air tight, she was risking it getting ruined, but she couldn't take the chance of it being tomorrow when it cleared up.

Of course she got caught and what happened to be nearby, but that one coffee shop. She had retreated inside to protect the cake and, well...she was stuck. Which was horrible because she kept REMEMBERING today and wanting to cry and she just kind of hoped no one would bother her if she just hid in the alcove area near the bathrooms.

She tapped away on the games on her phone, in her attempts to not stare at the cake in hopes of avoiding it, at least.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"That's right. There's slower settings then this, but where's the fun in that?" She said as the shapes rocketed down. She has a lot of free time to perfect her gaming skills, and she loves a good speed challenge. "You dun want the pieces to pile up too much without forming a line because if it reaches the top, it's game over."

"Higher speed, higher risk?" Sigma asks. She certainly works at quite a clip. Still, he finds a much more intriguing challenge in this than he ever did in any of his brothers' shoot-'em-up games. "How far do you usually get?"

"Pretty much. Harder to recover from a bad landing too. And I get a couple hundred lines on average. Depends how much free time I got."

"And you're free today? I don't see your computer with you." Usually she's hard at work on. . . something. At least, he assumes it's work.

More or less work.

She stops and the game over screen pops up moments later. "I...didn't mean to get caught in the cloud. I had been heading home when it came in and I didn't want to ruin the cake. Since, y'know, not vacuum seal."

"That's irritating," Sigma says. "It's a beautiful cake. Mind if I ask the occasion?"

"A....birthday. She's not here, but it felt wrong to not do...something," Roxy said, staring at the cake.

"I know the feeling," Sigma says. He remembers, the year Alpha disappeared, wanting to celebrate his brother's birthday in hopes that he would come back. He never did. "I think she would appreciate it, though. And it looks like you'll have cake for breakfast for the next few days."

She chuckled. "Yeah, I'll have it a while," she said, her chest feeling tight. She looked at him and grinned. "But! Speaking of bdays. You and I should meet up near yours."

"My birthday?" he asks. "All right, who have you been talking to? I don't think I told you when it is."

"Met Delta and apparently the O'Malley was Omega being a cheeky bastard," she said. "I'mma call him Omom now for that."

"Oh, so you know the family," he says. "Except for Epsilon and Gamma, unless you've met them, too?"

He would rather not think about that at the moment, so he continues, "He's been going around with a fake name? Sounds like my paranoid big brother. I might have to join you in that endeavor." The name doesn't quite make him laugh, but he does smile.

"Not yet. It took a bit, but people kept saying stuff that sounded familiar and it all just fell into place. I was kind of mad, like...seriously? Weird luck all over."

She nodded sagely. "He deserves it. What he gets for lying to a young girl," she said with a dramatic sigh. "But yeah, if it's your bday, I totes got you a present."

"Meg doesn't like us talking about the family that much," Sigma admits. "It's kind of weird. We weren't trying to deceive you. . . . Except for maybe Omega. Omom, I mean."

"Roxy, you didn't have to. Thank you, though. I will have to let you know if I'm celebrating it." Assuming this family mess has blown over by that point and he can have Omega, Delta, and York in the same room without punches flying.

"Really? He seemed to talk 'bout you easily enough. No names, of course..."

"You've been really nice and stuff, so it felt right," she said with a shrug. "And even if you dun have a party, you can still have the gift."

"Oh really. He's usually such a stickler for that kind of thing." He'll have to hassle "Omom" about it later.

"Thank you," he says. "Really. Maybe I'll have to throw a private shindig on campus. No family drama allowed." That would work. Just the people he cares about coming to share his birthday? Well, perhaps not all of them, but a token gesture at it. He doesn't want anything particularly exciting anyway.

"Maybe it was a pity thing," Roxy said with a shrug, like that....wasn't a bad sounding thing.

"Secret parties can be fun. If certain someone's dun wanna be an adult, no cake or party favors for 'em!"

"Either that, or Omom doesn't hold himself to the same standards as the rest of us." That wouldn't surprise him.

"Exactly," he says. "We can all be immature and ridiculous. No wasting cake, though. That would be a serious crime." He's sure York will help him with that first part, a thought that makes him smile.

"Well, I was confused by a grocery store, I probably didn't seem so threatening," she said.

"Of course not. Never waste food," Roxy said. "It's meant to be enjoyed."

"That is a valid reaction to most grocery stores," Sigma says. Never mind that he has to figure them out, and soon. "And my brother does have a soft heart somewhere."

"Yes, but cake is especially bad to waste," he points out. "Why squander a perfectly good dessert? Especially if it's the treat of the hour?"

"Is it? It sounded like I was being weird," she said. "And gog yes he does, it's like supes obvs, isn't it?"

"Exactly. Esp if you've got homemade. Homemade cakes are Da Best ever, really sad I dun actually have a proper oven."

"I never know where to find anything," he admits. "And every store seems to be organized differently. As if buying food weren't enough of a chore already."

He's glad she's seen Omega's soft side. She needs it, and it's a relief to know he still has one. "He tries to hide it and be tough, but you should see him with the twins." Saying it, he actually starts to believe it.

"I'm hoping to make a homemade cake. The frosting will be canned, though." Unfortunately. Still, it may take a miracle to get enough time to make a cake from scratch. Another detail of his birthday plan now foiled by his life schedule.

"It's kind of...daunting, yeah," she said. She's never seen so much food in one place in her LIFE. It's...it's so WEIRD.

"Oh my gosh, that'd be ADORBS," she said, hands on her face. "Dunno how he does, he projects like mad." That's because she's used to seeing through facades and the anger cover doesn't really do much to fool her.

"I could make some. Jane....Jane showed me how to bake. I ain't like her at all, but it's all decent 'nuff so long as I got a recipe for it."

"It would help if they didn't sell two or three different kinds of everything," he says.

"Wait, you can bake?" he asks. "I should ask Omega if you can come over sometime. Then you can see him with the twins and you can use our oven. I can try to pick up some tricks. What do you think? I think the little ones would love you."

"It does seem needlessly complicated and I can't fig out the diff 'sides price and packaging." It's REALLY weird.

She nodded. "Decently. Jane would recruit me into a lot of her cooking, and she's basically a kitchen goddess. She made sure I knew what I was doing. It was...a lot of fun," she said, with a fond smile. "And that would be amazin'."