amulius does not do much better the next go-around. parker doesn't know if he's just in his head or if he's tired with all the stupid jobs they've had to go out on lately. either way, at least he looks like he's still having fun letting off some steam. 

he stops kicking, waits for his next in, claps his hands together, and then blitzes forward with flare. 

parker's too poor to have an opinion on playstation over xbox. if anything, she goes, "d'you have crash? i only played it when i went to kidz kutz when i was a tyke."

she snubs her nose. "uh, yeah, sure." she's a solo act when it comes to debt collecting. the last time few times she tried to share the spotlight, well...bax almost died. and then that other time, people did die. 

rocket's uppers are a scary bunch.

"if i'm good at one thing, it's havin' big ass muscles."

Hitoshi Inoue
4vCdP1W6

☉

"ya, that's my schtick. the girl who comes up with the coolest ass nicknames," she says. nins (NEENS, to clarify) is better than what else she was considering - niner. but anyway, the clutch is smooth as silk and every time she shifts, she understands a little bit more why car-dudebros are so dudebro about their cars. 

"yeah, there's a wholeass track. even got some sponsorships," she says and sarcasm drips from every word coming right out of her mouth, but it's playful. her grin is back in full force as mercurial eyes continue to sweep the road. 

"up there," she says, jutting her chin. they're part of the procession now. part of the no way back. the back roads have all been cleared, tight alleys marked with yellow smears. it'll just be graffiti in a couple years, painted over maybe, in a paltry attempt to make this part of the city more palatable to people with money. 

the engine's purr becomes a whisper as they start to slow. and there, up at the front of the line, is the nameless biker that she swears has to be - 

"keep it clean within reason, folks! winner's gettin' a tight thousand 'n bragging rights."

there's no flag, but there is a gun, and their announcer flashes gold teeth as she raises her arm. engines roar in response and theirs is no different. parker licks her lips as she revs and spares a glance at nina as the countdown begins. 

"hold onto your butt, nins."

nina larson

☉

there are a lot of things she wants to do. 

simultaneously, she wants to jump off a bridge. be at the gym whacking a sandbag until her knuckles split. knock down a contract's door and go collecting. get in someone's face and make them afraid, really really afraid. fuck nomi. roughly. 

so she is here, and she is playing sonic 2, and she is refusing to think about all of the above. 

"dog, i didn't know the little bitches could die," she says with a shake of her head as she breezes through the title screen. "uhhh, you want sonic or shadow?"

howard slayte

☉

people change. the unown dyed nomi's hair blue which, you know, parker has some thoughts about regarding boundaries, but whatever to that too. admin fox looks different in a bunch of weird little ways, but she's not really surprised. not really phased. 

but she does say, "you look better with a hat."

parker blinks and wordlessly watches a tragic home movie version of iron giant work its way through her door. when the thing is finished, transposed on its side (???), it looks like a boulder is in the middle of her dingy apartment. definitely scraping up the laminate floors. 

also wordlessly, she goes to the air mattress in the bedroom, scoops up her ratty blanket, and tosses it over the living rock.

"is that its face?" she says and points at the blinking lights. 

she makes a point not to sit on that part.

after settling down, she yanks one controller up into her lap. she holds the other out to fox. title music plays in the background. the gamecube is already up and running. she's kind of pissed. the game she swiped was mankey ball, but the asshole had sonic in the case instead.

the blue and black shaymin race on the screen alongside title music.

"already beat solo mode. i wanna do duos now."

that's it. that's the emergency.

howard slayte

☉

things are, how might one say, Not So Good in the jones and sato household. which is a paradox in itself because there is no longer a household in the equation. their stupid, beautiful, ridiculous, stupid house is gone. soaked through with salt and brine, filled with mold. every fucking thing inside of it was broken, washed out, destroyed. 

thankfully, her old slum lord landlord hadn't managed to chain someone else to the damn place. 

she looks like shit. she feels like shit. all the furniture they moved is now furniture for the fish. so she's got an air mattress in the bedroom, half a roll of toilet paper on the ground in the bathroom, and a tv and gamecube she nicked from some poor bloke down a few neighborhoods over. 

she did it in an attempt to feel something and he's a total homophobe so whatever. 

but the loneliness is maybe the worst part, and nomi has to deal with the fallout of everything, but honestly, parker hasn't been asking her to stay. 

"rocket emergency," she says on the call to one admin fox. and then when he shows up and she side-steps to let him inside, she says, "i don't have a fucking couch."

howard slayte

☉

"i told you," she snaps back. "i told you this was fuckin' bigger than us."

anger colors her cheeks. a black fire fills her chest and every exhale is sharp. pained. shards of glass needle her insides and she doesn't know why they're there, or where they've come from, only she does - her heart's gone past its limits, shattered into a million and one bloody pieces. 

fuck honesty. 

"FUCK."

no, fuck the lies. fuck this whole sham. the whole world is ending and parker doesn't care. 

"it's gonna be a bloodbath, nomi." her jaw stretches. strains. pain makes her tongue thick. "i don't care what the fuck you gotta do, you come back. 'cause ya can't die a godsdamned hero."

they're already the villains. 

Naomi Sato

☉

parker's fingers twine in nomi's hair and though she's captivated, completely spellbound, old habits die hard. small, possessive movements - the stretching her hand down to the nape of her neck, rough bumping of her hips to drape herself across nomi's tongue. 

pleasure knits above her navel and she pants, reaching blindly with one hand for the lip of the tub as she folds over from the waves that crash over her at nomi's greedy, unrelenting tenacity.

sensitivity tingles all over her and still nomi laps sweetly, slowly, until parker's swearing up and down and left staring wildly at her simpering lips. 

"you little - you fucking - holy - " she stammers and plops back into the bubbly tub, now only about half full of water with all their friskiness. she doesn't waste any time. she goes back to nomi's neck, nuzzling under her ear, hands back on her body because she only wants to hold her and squeeze her and touch her for hours. 

"mm, i got 'nother gift for you," she whispers in her ear. "'cause you like, mm, well, maybe i should just go put it on."

Naomi Sato

☉