last year, KING WAYLAND had beaten her to the punch when it came to getting nomi a drink for the holiday party. but times have changed. she's Stronger now - she's been upgraded from Bodyguard status to Girlfriend status. 

that being said, she still spends a stupid amount of time doing herself up before the party. her lower lip is a bit swollen, split and fighting to go down on the swelling despite the frozen peas she presses to it for hours.

'don't make this hard for me today, paul. i got a date tonight.'

'fuck you, six, and fuck off - i don't have the money.

he'd gotten in a swipe by the time parker hit punch number three. she'd been pulling. and when she felt the blood dribble over her lip, she used the next three to break the rest of paul's face in. asshole.

but her hair looks incredible. her makeup is subtle, just a smudging around her eyes, and she swears she looks cooler with her lip hastily healed over anyway. 

she is currently in an alcove, hiding from Yumi Hasegawa's sight. two drinks are perched in one of her big palms. her phone is grasped in her other hand, blue-grey eyes lighting up at the image. 

her lewd responses are many in number and are riddled with spelling errors due to her current one-handedness. and just for funsies, she snaps a pic of her outstretched hand, the drinks gleaming in the light of some of the twinkly unown (which is fucking hilarious to her, by the way). 

come 'n get me, cupcake ;)

ROCKET HOLIDAY PARTY
taking pics of drinks in hand
feel free to interrupt her sexting totally normal texting

☉

"oh, priam. oh, man, that's fuckin' good." she's giddy as a grade schooler at the scholastic book fair (she never went to one of those) and sends the text immediately. there can't be terrible ramifications there, right?

though the difference between the previous text and the latter is kind of startling. 

not that it seems to matter. 

"dude, he fucking sent the godsdamned eggplant back. holy fuck, it actually worked. wait, more emojis. a flower?? what the..."

👉🌱🌸🔥🥵

priam conrad

☉

it might honestly be the worst rundown or prior introduction to a girlfriend parker could have given. well, actually no, she's told avery a couple dozen other meet-cutes that have made avery look at her like she'd just sprouted another eyeball in the middle of her head.

"oh, trust me, when you see her you'll get it. she's not all white eyeballs and freaky shit all the time, but damn if she doesn't like to talk about it."

parker knows a lot about all the cool sciencey tomfuckery happening in the region by proxy of nomi and it fucking sucks, actually! like, before, she usually just kept her head low and looked at an invasion event like 'oh, just another tuesday,' but now it's all about the ramifications of this and what if our alternate timeline selves come and take our place hypotheses that. 

life was a lot less exciting before meeting nomi. 

life was also really fucking gray before meeting her too.

"she has the whole alphabet soup of unown. she says they love her or something. or, she loves them and they're, like, not robots or unfeeling sentinels. but aside from that, she loves science and used to own her own brewery and maisey adores her, and anyway, once you settle in it's date time 'cause you're gonna love her.

"and she's gonna love you."

avery jones

☉

but they're not just randoms. she knows their stories. she knows their families. she knows their friends. that's her job - to know their closest, well-kept secrets and to use them to threaten if her fists don't work. they're convenient. she has issues with her rage and they're a get out of jail fuckin' free card when it comes to behavioral therapy. 

he's right, though. it's gonna kill her one day. 

"i hoped they'd get you," she says. betrayal still stings, prickling the corner of her eyes. "so i don't have to." here, now, they're safe, though. 

are they? 

if he's had rockets crawling up his asshole since the hospital, ain't no way he can just walk around in broad daylight like this without a tail. right?

"i hear they call you the liberator now. cheeky fuck. what, you gonna liberate me? 'cause you know damn well that ain't happenin'. not while she's here."

Isaac Merlo

☉

"y'know," she says and presses experimentally on a ring left on her arm from a little suction thingy, "i'd love to go, like, five minutes without upside down crazy shit happening." but peace of mind doesn't seem to surround those in the upper echelon of rocket. 

the hell-wisp that lulu summons sends a shudder down parker's spine. the only time she'd ever dealt with one of the things had been with Isaac Merlo and none of that was fun either. 

with the marshadow's help, amulius manages to punt most of the other octopuses off of the side of the boat. parker strolls over to the side and peers down. 

and spits for good measure. 

"do grapploct carry diseases? should i be worried 'bout swallowing their juices or whatever?"

Lulu Flint

☉

"you get it?" she says, baffled. "you get it?" 

she spits at his feet. is this why he's here? to tell her it's okay to be angry, just hit me! just make it all go away, parker! just yell at me, parker! so he can fucking feel better about what he did? so he can wipe his hands clean of guilt when they're six fucking feet under?

"nah, nah." she reacts with violence because she doesn't know how else and because he's telling her it's what she needs and she hates that she needs it and, "i beat on fuckers every godsdamned day, isaac. what the hell makes you think beatin' your ass is gonna fix this? is gonna fix any of this?" 

her lips are curled, words sharp on razor teeth, fingers fisted in his shirt to raise him eye level even if she wants to look down on him. 

and then, she thinks about something that really does make her angry. 

"you makin' rounds? stay away from us. i swear to fuck if you put nomi in any more danger, i'll fuckin' kill you."

Isaac Merlo

☉

scorbunny is too busy playing footsies with a rock to worry about what her trainer's doing. she's about as no-thoughts-head-empty as watson is, minus the sociability. 

parker stares him down. her shoulders tighten. her jaw tightens. her calves tighten. her fucking toes curl. the smile on his face makes it worse. her heart tightens. 

"fuck you."

for getting out. for leaving her behind. for leaving before they knew each other proper. for teasing a friendship and slapping her in the face with it. for hurting nomi. for putting nomi in danger. for making nomi cry. 

bruised knuckles raise again. a muscle in her cheek flicks. but then she drops her arm and scowls down at the ground. 

Isaac Merlo

☉

he helped give her the world. watson too. her nose nearly touches the asphalt. sweat drips down her nose. it stings her eyes. her palms are prickled all over from playground sand and pebbles. she relishes the bite of it in her skin. makes her think of the matching skinned knees she and avery jones always had.

on a push up, the totodile nears. her mouth twists in a grimace, but she's too out of breath to snap at the gator to leave her alone. and she pays the price. the muscles in her back knot, straining, and she huffs out an exhale, catching it behind her teeth and shifting into the new weight. 

and then she goes down. and up. and down. slower, now, because she's built like a truck, but she's still human. 

slow enough that rage-fueled heart palpitations aren't making her see herself punch the lights out of isaac in a ridiculous amount of ways. she's still mad. she's still really fucking mad by the time she's done, but by the time she's done, she's exhausted. 

she could probably eat like fifty eggs right now and still be hungry. hungry enough for bacon and ham and half a loaf of bread and shit, she's starving. usually she trots right back home and gorges herself protein, but muscle isaac will have to do.

with watson dutifully in tow, she walks back to isaac. the kids have mostly gone back to playing. 

which is good. 

because parker underestimates her ability to stay angry. 

and punches isaac in the face.

Isaac Merlo

☉

salt tickles her nose. so does copper. her lungs huff with the exertion, capillaries bursting and giving her that copper tang that accompanies pushing your body well past its limits. her wrists are blooming red from grasping with such fervor. a couple of the kids are cheering her on. one little dude is pretending he's not impressed. 

he kicks a rock at her and scorbunny sends it back, punting it into his stomach and sending him away crying. out of the corner of her eye, she watches the parents' reaction and grins like a wolf when they contemplate and decide Fuck No. 

back to it. 

she goes until just before her arms start feeling like jelly. breathing hard through her mouth, a dribble of clear snot trailing down her nose, she takes a hearty swig from her water and counts down until her next set. 

some short meathead walks behind a tottering totodile, back to her. she slams her palms together, flexes her fingers, and hauls ass back onto the bar. this time she goes for pull-ups, legs crossed at the ankles as she pumps up and down and - 

fuck, what?

mr hunk is waving and it's not some nameless dumbass. it's motherfucking stupidass piece of shit ISAAC GODSDAMNED MERLO. 

her grip slackens out of surprise and she grimaces as the full force of her weight shunts onto her shoulders. the old injury doesn't quite pop, but it hurts like a bitch and she totters onto the asphalt, fuming. 

snot still running down her face. pink hair matted on her forehead. muscles still tight with exertion. she's only halfway done and if she walks over there right now, she knows what she's gonna fuckin' do. 

so she scowls and drops, face hovering over the ground as she counts in rapid succession onetwothreefourfivesixseveneightnineteneleven - push-ups, going, going, going, staring at the ground and seeing scarlet.

Isaac Merlo

☉

so things have been hard lately. they've been really fucking good (her hands, all over nomi's body, restful sleep for the first time in weeks, curling against her, waking up to sunshine and pink and thinking this is right, this is right and am i in love and whoa, that's crazy, that's too much, you've only been dating for twenty years a couple months) but also really fucking bad (thinking about the cataclysm, the late nights in the lab watching nomi work, worrying about the end of the their world, seeing the white white whites of nomi's eyes and thinking you always have to come back. you always have to come back to me).

this morning is okay. it's an in between. nomi has to work and she promises with folded love notes behind pursed lips that she'll be okay for the few hours parker can't keep eyes on her. 

they have their own lives. she doesn't want to be clingy. she likes existing in the same room as nomi. but she has a job to do and before her job, she has her body to take care of and anyway, she feels terrible if she doesn't work out. 

jogging is a pain, but when the cold sweat starts rolling, it's easy to forget about all the rest of it. it's easy to not think about all the bad and instead, to think, i'm gonna get so buff, i'm gonna punch the sun.

the playground by the harbor is her usual spot. the bars she grips are bitching cold, but her running partner helps warm them up for her. she does a crazy modified burpee, pushing up and launching out of her squat, grabbing onto the bar, hauling ass into the chin-up and then back down, all the way down to the ground. 

scorbunny watches her in awe. a couple kids kick some rocks with the rabbit, but the gaggle of them don't stop glancing over every once in a while. 

Isaac Merlo

☉