undergrounds | [open] march prompts - will match prose OR brackets

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[open] march prompts - will match prose OR brackets

i. a nightclub

Nights with live music are better for dancing. People come up with any number of reasons why -- the feel of the bass beating in your heart, the energy from the band mixing with the energy of the crowd. It's all bullshit, really. Esoteric crap that people come up with when the night's mostly over and they're too high to think they sound pretentious. It's all because of the noise. Because when the amps are pumped up to max, when the singers are screaming into their mics, it's too loud to worry about thinking. The couple in the corner making out, two friends having a row...it doesn't matter. You mute it and just fucking dance.

Which she does, as much as possible. Moving. Aggressively ignoring all of the other shit. Beat after beat, partner after partner, staying only long enough to make them want her and then vanishing into the crowd again. Later, you'll find her at the bar, ordering a round of shots --vodka, from the look of it-- and then immediately downing one of them.

ii. outside a tube station

"Listen, Ms. Stonem," Effy, she silently corrects, watching them. "You're a lovely young lady, but I'm just not sure you...mesh...with our vision." She wasn't really listening for the rest. There were some half-hearted platitudes --"we really do wish you all the best," "we're really very sorry," "you've been so valuable," things like that-- and she probably muttered a quick "thanks" before going to pack her things, but it didn't matter. Not really. Temping in a finance office was never really her dream job, of course, but it just sort of...seemed like something you were meant to do. "Get out into the real world" and everything. Well, so much for that. She doesn't realize until she's off the train that one of the briefs she'd been putting together is still in her bag.

As soon as she's off the train, she pulls out a cigarette, flicks open her lighter -- it doesn't work. Nice.

She can be found outside of the station, unlit cigarette still in her mouth, tearing pages out of the brief, folding them into abstract shapes and then tossing them into a pile on the ground.

iii. late night wandering

It's always the same dream that wakes her, so late into the night that it borders on early. A door, appearing in an empty wall of her flat, opening into blackness, calling her forward. Beckoning. Sometimes, she thinks she can see herself, staring back at her from the other side of it, a faint silhouette in the darkness.

"You don't know me," she hears, her own voice coming from that other self's mouth, "and you never will."

She takes a step toward it, and then another, and then--

Awake, gasping, she shoots up and stares at the wall. No door. She reaches for a lighter, remembers the stern words of the landlady --no smoking at all times, god, why had she picked this place, again?-- and slips outside. It's raining -- something she doesn't seem to notice until she realizes she's forgot her keys. In her flat. With a door that automatically locks behind her.

"...Fuck."

And that's the story of how Effy is now wandering around alone, soaked and smoking, aimlessly waiting until someone happens to open the door -- or the management office opens. One or the other.

iv. wildcard
(any time during the month. choose your own starter, or talk to me on plurk [

posolutely] and i'll set up another prompt!)

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If you were to look at the nice, designer bag Gaby had slung over her shoulder, you'd never guess the amount of books it somehow managed to hold. She carries it with ease, though, her heels clicking against the pavement as she makes her way to the station -- a necessity, that, though not one she particularly likes.

The sound of her heels comes to a stop, though, right in front of the pile of papers, half-crunched or folded into shapes that barely makes sense... she bends down, picks up one of them.

"A star? It's good." It is, too -- the shapes, abstract though they might be, are also artistic. Gaby finds she likes them better than some of the origami shapes she saw in Kyoto... they're more real.

Effy has noticed the well-styled woman, watching from the corner of her eye, listing to the sound of heels clicking on pavement. A vaguely unsettled feeling has begun mounting in the back of her mind, and she can't completely reason out why -- some feeling of...not-rightness that makes her wary. Maybe it's the way she's dressed, the way everything about her looks so clean and orderly. It's weird.

Effy, by contrast, still has a cigarette hanging from her lips, torn paper edges scattered across the floor beneath her boots. She's busy tearing one sheet now, into thin lines that curl as she rips them from the rest of the paper. "Keep it, if you want." The lines of that star are way less pristine than the lines of Gaby's dress. "Maybe someday it'll be worth something."

Origami is not her strong suit, clearly -- the only way she could get the paper into that shape was to tear it up. But dry sarcasm clearly is one of her talents.

Clean and orderly -- not words that anyone would have associated with the Gaby that still lived in Berlin, spending her days under cars, face smudged with oil, dresses pushed aside in favour of ragged overalls, hanging loose around her slight frame.

But she hadn't been that Gaby for a long while, now.

"I think I will, thank you," she says, voice somehow aloof and light at once, like making conversation over a pile of trash with a wayward teenager (for the girl certainly looks like one) is an everyday thing for her.

"What have they done, to offend you?" She indicates the papers on the ground with her now free hand, the paper star dropped on top of her half-open bag.

She's a long way from Berlin, that's for sure. Even Bristol seems a whole world away, for the Effy standing outside the station in London. Her skirt covers a little more area, her eyeliner is a little more sparse. "Business casual" is still a bit of a reach, but she tried. Maybe the dress code should've been the first sign.

"Yeah. Sure." Her tone is brusque, as though brushing off the gratitude. She's already moved onto the next project. It begins in an orderly way, folds precise and intentional. Meaningful. Partway through, though, it all falls apart -- whatever it was supposed to be, she clearly only has the start of it, and once she falters on the rest, it totally loses its shape. She folds, then unfolds, then folds again, but the damage is done.

Maybe she should've learned. She should've done loads of things.

"Nothing," she says with a shrug, sighing beneath the unlit cigarette as she pulls off another sheet. "But they don't mean anything anymore. Not like this. No one gives a fuck about them, like this."

The girl is upset -- the signs are easy enough to read. She tries to look like she doesn't care, tries to act like her vandalizing the once-important papers and leaving them in an unburnt pile on the ground isn't a reflection on those who the papers belonged to... what they symbolized.

Gaby glances down at the papers again, a casual look, and catches numbers, notes. Assembled for a case, an office file, perhaps.

A file that the office no longer needs, it seems.

"You took them with you," she counters, voice just as impassive as before, the implication that means you still care some way hidden in the words.

The emotionless quality disappears, though, when she continues: "If you don't look right, sound right, have the right background... they don't need much reason. Offices, corporations. Young women can starve for all they care."

Assumption -- but then, Gaby isn't a spy for nothing... and more than that, she recognizes herself in the girl in front of her, seventeen and out of work, out of money, all alone.

Upset might be a strong word, but only in the way that anything would be a strong word. It doesn't really matter, in the end. Once she had it, she realized it wasn't really what she wanted anyway. It was probably just a matter of time before it turned out like this. The facts and figures are little more than abstract, colorful patterns when you start to rearrange them. They're just jibberish.

"Something to remember them by," she says, dry and maybe a bit forcefully nonchalant.

Gaby's words make her slow and then stop her paper-folding, watching the woman with wary eyes. You don't know me, her first gut response, she bites back. This woman is more than just that weird feeling she's getting -- she's sharp and observant. The last thing Effy needs, or wants, to do is give herself away completely.

Being analyzed like that -- read like an open book. It's disturbing.

"I know, it's devastating," she says in the end, voice dripping with sarcasm. "How shall I ever fulfill my dreams of being a desk girl now?"

Maybe she did care, a little. It's not nearly as much as she cares about being scrutinized like this.

She isn't sure why this girl interests her so much, what it is about her that makes her stand here and keep talking to her, trying to see through the layers, one by one. Maybe it's the way she thinks she must have been like this, before, distrustful and and hiding behind sharp words.

(Sometimes, she thinks she's not truly changed from that -- only become better at lying.)

Gaby hums, nonchalant and clearly unaffected by the sarcasm... or choosing to ignore it. It isn't like she doesn't rely on sarcasm as well, if the situation calls for it; she knows how to deal with someone who does the same.

"Isn't it less about the job, and more about... feeling you're good enough for it? And the money," she adds, matter-of-fact. "I always thought the job mattered little, as long as it gave me enough money to get by."

It's the truth, too -- or at least it was, back when she was still getting her education to be a mechanic, when she needed to take every job she could to keep the house, to pay the bills. And offering some information about herself, instead of only talking about the girl... maybe it will make her less wary.

"Maybe." A placating response, matched with a faint flicker of a smile. In the end, it's not really the job, is it? The job, the money, feeling like you're good at something...it never mattered.

It-- it's that feeling of belonging. Of being able to hold onto something human -- anything. 'We're just not sure you...mesh." Of course they fucking weren't. Of course she fucking doesn't. She didn't "mesh" in Bristol. She had hoped things would come together a little more here, in a city so big that she could be anyone. Anyone she wants. But that's not how it works, is it? Instead of being anyone, she's here, just her, talking to a woman who makes her unsettled in a way she can't explain, but that certainly can't be normal.

Maybe she wouldn't know any of that if it was staring her in the face.

"...It was crap, anyway," she adds, after a moment, a distinct feeling in mind that Gaby is not going to let her just shut the conversation down. "Busy work. Bet you could find half a dozen places like that just on this street."

"Probably," she says, and manages to make even an agreement sound smooth, nonchalant. A part of her is surprised the girl puts up with the conversation, even keeping it alive like this, not waiting for Gaby to keep pushing for answers.

Maybe she doesn't have too many people to talk to, like this. Or maybe it's easier, to talk to a stranger on the street than those you know... without the need to pretend.

Gaby wonders when pretending became easier than trying to truly be someone, when even being herself started feeling like a pretense.

"I'm sure you could... but if it was, as you say, crap," her voice places the slightest of emphasis on the word, like making it subtly obvious there is another word she would use, the sibilant sounds of her native language at the tip of her tongue, "wouldn't it be the same in any one of those?"

Of course it would. But that isn't the point, is it?

"What is it you came here to do? To London. Find work? A holiday? Me, I'm the former," she adds, with the slightest of smiles.

It's not so bad, really -- she's "put up" with a lot more, in terms of talking to people. Most of them...they used her quietness as a way to keep talking. They just needed someone to talk to, someone they could imagine was listening, and it didn't really matter who it was. She was a sounding board, and that was fine. It meant she didn't have to worry about any of it: lying, answering questions. She could just be quiet, and people thought it was 'cool' and 'enigmatic.'

But this woman is asking questions, and she's not just rattling along -- she's listening. No, it's not unheard of. But it's got her interested. ("Why me?" she can't help but wonder, all the same.)

"Would be, yeah," she agrees, a faintly amused smile tugging at her face at Gaby's enunciation of the word crap. "Maybe I should aim higher. 'Shoot for the moon. Aim for greatness.'" The tone is faintly sardonic. Motivation in life...it's never been her strong suit, not really. Usually, she's still working on right now, not thinking about the future.

She watches Gaby for a moment, curiously. "For work?" She very unsubtly does not answer just yet. "What d'you do?"

Aim for greatness... that makes her swallow back a scoff, a faintly humorless sigh escaping her despite her efforts. Her father, he aimed for the top, was the best of the best in his field... and look where that got him. Working for criminals, killed in cold blood.

"There's nothing wrong with aiming for mediocrity, as long as it's what you want." She means it, too -- to aim for greatness, it requires a certain type of person. It means there's so much further down to fall.

She hums in response, noting the girl's lack of response -- but then, she was pushing it, wasn't she?

"This and that. But right now, they were lacking a physics teacher in the Institute... so they called me." She pushes her sunglasses at the top of her head, revealing a pair of bright eyes, keen and ever-changing in colour-- it's hard to pin down whether they're brown, green or grey.

"I'm not really teacher material," she admits with a light tone; her own failure in this doesn't seem to upset her much, and certainly never factored in to her decision to accept the job. (Of course it wouldn't have-- her job here is far more than simply teaching.)

"I don't 'aim' for anything." Effy tears another page out; objective: a paper airplane. Once it's finished, she aims it at the nearest bin and throws. It flies true, but ends up sticking in the grated metal casing. The words may sound dismissive, but she means every word of it. She always just sort of...coasted. Toss the leaves up in the air and wait to see where they land. I never try. She never lied about that, either.

It's not exactly a great way to live your life, probably, but what the hell. Maybe that's her "fae nature" or something.

For now, she gives the rest of the economics brief a bit of a rest, tucking it under one arm as she rifles through her bag for --aha-- another lighter. She sparks it once, twice, and-- it lights on the third try.

"A teacher." She sounds a bit surprised, at that, though she shouldn't really be. Roundview had loads of teachers way more strange than her. "So, physics? Bet that's exciting." Her tone is noncommittal, as if she can't decide whether she's serious or sarcastic.

"That's alright, too," she says smoothly, unruffled and decidedly unteacherlike -- no true teacher would ever call it alright to admit to drifting along, having no true goals or aims in life. Gaby, though? For the longest time, she wasn't quite certain she was aiming anywhere. To find out what happened to her father was one goal... but it waned into a steady, calm curiosity, any hope she'd once entertained of putting her family pack together gone with the passing of years.

Now, with her job, with UNCLE? Her goal... is to complete her missions. To lie, to succeed, to never be bored again.

She's not sure it's much of a goal, in the end.

"It can be," she answers. The girl is surprised-- something that isn't a surprise. She knows she isn't what people would expect of a teacher, and trying to be... simply wouldn't happen. She must make the cover work in some other way. She breathes out and shrugs. "Not so much on high school level."

Unteacherlike, indeed. Effy watches her for a moment -- it wouldn't be the first time she'd gotten slack advice from a teacher. But this woman...she wouldn't have expected that, from her. She has a look about her, a sort of 'I follow all the rules' air.

But, hey. Looks can be deceiving.

"One hell of a teacher, aren't you," she observes, exhaling smoke with a wry smile.

Maybe she would've fit in well, at Roundview. Maybe. But then -- did anyone? Did any of them? Disaffected youths and even more disaffected teachers. Legendary rule-breakers and career slackers. No one really wanted to be there, did they. Not a one.

"Must be tough." If they were anything like the people she knew, at least.

Looks can be deceiving, indeed -- and in this particular case, they are meant to be. It's all anyone is supposed to see: a young woman, proper and stylish, someone who would never so much as consider jumping out of a second-storey window in high heels while being shot at-- wait, no, scratch that last part, that wouldn't in ordinary circumstances happen to basically anyone anyway. But one thing is right: she isn't a typical teacher. Hell, she isn't even a teacher, just like she wasn't a Russian architect's fiancée, or a famous loan shark... or even a simple mechanic from a German city desperate to get away.

"I like to think I'm... different enough," she answers, with a small shrug. The sentiment holds almost too much truth-- she's quite likely to be the most different teacher the Institute has ever had.

Gaby regards the girl for a while, tilting her head while her eyes remain unblinking, almost eerily so. "Maybe you should consider some more studying, too, if being a desk girl isn't living up to... anything. Redbright is- not bad, as far as its education goes." Not perhaps the best sales pitch, but then she's never been one to mince words.

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[open] march prompts - will match prose OR brackets

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