tearmeanewone: (127)
Elizabeth ([personal profile] tearmeanewone) wrote in [community profile] undergrounds2016-04-27 12:12 pm

[Open] Baby's Got Blue Eyes

Who: Elizabeth DeWitt & You
What: Canceling a vacation sucks. It's worse when you're Elizabeth.
When: Late April
Where: Various
Warnings: None so far!

Yes, she probably should have expected that this was how it would pan out. Namely, that it wouldn't pan out at all.

Illya had at least called to say he was going away and that she could go to Paris with somebody else, but halfway through the explanation Elizabeth had just hung up. She'd talked to him about how she felt used, how much it hurt, and here she was again. The provider of wolfsbane, promised a trip to Paris and then... he left before it was safe to go. Convenient, it felt so convenient to her, and typical. When hadn't this happened with her? Did she have any friends, really?

[A - Circle Daybreak]

Work is an obvious distraction. Elizabeth has been feeling her abilities getting stronger as of late, and so she spends almost all of her free time from classes at the Circle studying and working with her mentors there. When she's not reading, she's practicing, and her feelings are once again seeping into her magic. It's like she's in Columbia again, and her tenuous control is, again, slipping.

She's carefully laying frost over the surface of delicate flowers one afternoon, and it looks as though she's doing a passable job until her phone buzzes in her bag. For a moment she imagines it's someone needing another free favor, and her anger spikes. The ice instantly thickens and spikes, and Elizabeth shouts in teeth-clenched frustration. She discards the attempt with the rest of the melting, twisted ice-sculptures with flowers inside, and pulls over another one to start over.


[B - Groceries]

Usually Elizabeth likes cooking, and her weekly haul consists mostly of vegetables and meat and rice or pasta to make something healthy and delicious for the week. Cooking sounds like too much effort now. Apparently this week, she's going to be consuming frozen pizza, two bags of chips, garlic bread, ice cream, canned soup, and a large package of beef jerky. She's trying to decide if she wants to pay the exorbitant price of a pineapple, holding it up and scrutinizing the fruit intensely.

She has no idea what makes a good pineapple, she realizes.


[C - Westminster Library]

She doesn't want to read anything, either. Nothing sounds good.

There's plenty of recent fiction on the shelf, and she scans the spines waiting for something to jump out at her. It all sounds like garbage, though. Pointless garbage. Three-hundred pages of fictional people and their problems while Elizabeth's life is actually dangerous and difficult.

She shoulders her bag and walks out of the shelving without picking out anything.


[D - Westminster Park]

Elizabeth sits there with her phone on her usual park bench, staring intently at the screen. It's got a message written on it, but she knows she's angry and she's texting angry. Part of her says she's allowed to be angry, the other says to just delete the message and move on. Nothing good will come of being angry.

She hits send anyway.

I wanted to go with you. I thought of you as my friend.

There's a pause.

900000278: Delivery has failed.

She locks the phone and tilts her head back over the back of the bench. That felt like her last way out of feeling so low, and now... she's missed her chance.
hurtfew: (★ 7)

A

[personal profile] hurtfew 2016-04-27 08:21 pm (UTC)(link)
"Miss DeWitt!"

Norrell's voice is quiet, as it ever is, even when raised -- this the best attempt at 'raised' he has and it is still not very loud. He's walking in short but very quick strides toward her, bundles of papers in his arms that are sure to be related to the election and his own campaign. Several times he has spoken to her about it already, yet for some reason she has been ever so busy! Lucky he found her now.

"Miss DeWitt, I --good lord."

He frowns at the mess of ice in spikes and then at Elizabeth. Well, perhaps not the best time...
hurtfew: (★ 5)

[personal profile] hurtfew 2016-04-27 08:30 pm (UTC)(link)
As if he would ask her how to use Photoshop! No, no -- he will make her use Photoshop while he instructs her on what he wants and why that is wrong. He will not touch it himself.

"Perhaps," he begins, "you should take a break. If you overwork yourself you may well only make things worse! I have some good tea we can have, and there are some nice scones we can share."

And a stack of envelopes that need stuffing.
hurtfew: (★ 7)

[personal profile] hurtfew 2016-04-27 08:55 pm (UTC)(link)
Excellent! He brightens and waves at follow, quickly pads back through. Large areas of the main hall are already devoted to campaign tasks. People tasked with phoning others, counting and organising fliers, letters, and a few tasked with... investigating rival campaigns.

He pushes through and makes his way through the labyrinth hallway into his office, a peculiar speciality spell of his that means the short walk seems more like a confusing winding path far longer than it is. Once inside he dumps down the stack of folders and begins fussing with the tea, heating some water for them and opening a large wooden box full of several types of tea.

"This china set was a gift from Miss Redbright!" he tells her. "I was much surprised myself when she gave it to me, but it has served me well. It is enchanted to detect poison, you see."

Which is always a concern for someone as paranoid as Gilbert Norrell.
hurtfew: (★ 4)

[personal profile] hurtfew 2016-04-27 09:31 pm (UTC)(link)
"Oh --" Norrell says, turning and regarding her with hesitance. He's a little thrown by her simply going directly into his folders without asking or being prompted, but too awkward in the face of her apparent bad mood to properly protest. "That can wait," he offers somewhat uncertainly. The folders themselves contain letters of appeal, fliers and small leaflets variously. One seems to be largely information on a few locations and some menu and drinks prices. Norrell is of course planning a dinner to coax people.

He pours out some hot water for her tea and begins to fuss with the tin of scones in turn.

(no subject)

[personal profile] hurtfew - 2016-04-27 21:44 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] hurtfew - 2016-04-28 16:24 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] hurtfew - 2016-05-05 22:22 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] hurtfew - 2016-05-30 14:46 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] hurtfew - 2016-05-30 16:35 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] hurtfew - 2016-05-30 16:56 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] hurtfew - 2016-05-30 17:11 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] hurtfew - 2016-05-30 17:29 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] hurtfew - 2016-05-30 20:43 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] hurtfew - 2016-05-31 09:56 (UTC) - Expand
baisant: (3)

D

[personal profile] baisant 2016-04-27 08:51 pm (UTC)(link)
Jean-Claude watches her with her phone, and though he does not quite understand what she is doing with it -- such modernities are lost on him -- he still understands the expression on her face. And while company may or may not be welcome, perhaps a distraction may be what she needs. Besides, he cannot say that he is not curious as to what might have made her so upset.

He strolls towards her, trying his best not to be too obtrusive, to feel out the scene, although he knows he will be intruding, interrupting. And he does so anyway. "My apologies," he says, his voice soft and low, and unmistakably French as he steps around the back of the bench to peer into her face, upside-down as it appears at the moment. "I cannot help but have noticed your displeasure..." She had practically draped herself over the thing, after all. No one makes such a move when they are feeling happy, for certain.
baisant: (5)

[personal profile] baisant 2016-04-27 11:12 pm (UTC)(link)
Jean-Claude shrugs slightly, a movement that could mean anything or nothing at all. She is upset, but she went on to apologize almost immediately after snapping at him, which shows that she doesn't really have a temper, something is just clearly bothering her.

Something that left without leaving so much as a note, apparently. Or someone, more precisely. Jean-Claude has never been one to be unnecessarily delicate about a matter, and so it is that he does not pad his words, as he leans forward against the back of the bench and asks plainly, "A friend, or a lover?"
baisant: (Default)

[personal profile] baisant 2016-04-30 01:21 pm (UTC)(link)
"Ah," Jean-Claude replies, moving around the bench to join her on it. Not that he really knows anything about what the phone part means -- he's really not all that good with technology (though he tries to stay up, he's usually a few decades behind the times no matter what he does).

"It is never easy to discover that we have been led on by someone we care for," he responds. "Though there are worse things he could have done than disappeared in such a way. Certainly worse betrayals."
baisant: (3)

[personal profile] baisant 2016-05-08 02:06 am (UTC)(link)
Jean-Claude inclines his head slightly. It's very true, he could have done everything she had said and more. He doesn't really understand what the joke is, but he's not all that concerned about it. Besides, he has his own sense of humor, for that matter.

"You're better off staying out of Paris, anyway," he says, with the quirk of a smile. "Too many French." Says the Frenchman.

(no subject)

[personal profile] baisant - 2016-05-10 23:36 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] baisant - 2016-05-20 22:49 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] baisant - 2016-06-11 19:49 (UTC) - Expand
spionin: (pic#9966870)

d;

[personal profile] spionin 2016-04-28 09:13 am (UTC)(link)
Illya had mentioned it, when she'd pushed him to tell her what had happened during the time she'd been assigned in Dubai, that he'd met someone who had agreed to make him wolfsbane... he'd even mentioned the trip, off-hand and unreadable as ever.

She'd forgotten about it, of course, between the phone call that sent Illya on his way again (and, consequently) left Gaby by herself in London, and the flurry of activity that was her workplace, now with the elections forthcoming.

But a trip to the shops takes her through the park, past the girl on the bench -- Gaby pauses, looking at her, the way the girl stares so intently at her phone... though whatever is in it isn't making her happy.

"What has your phone done, to offend you so?" she knows the old Gaby would walk past, not engage -- but a teacher is someone who wants to help those who might need it, and that is her persona, now. (And in the afternoon light, her eyes flash green-gold, catlike; you know what they say of cats and curiosity...)
spionin: (pic#9966871)

[personal profile] spionin 2016-04-30 04:37 pm (UTC)(link)
"How rude of it," she responds conversationally. She's never had that problem with phones -- in a job like hers, friends are never made for long term, and aside from calls that relate to the work she does in her cover, the only times her real phone rings is when Waverly needs to give her new instructions.

The girl's quiet admission makes her pause for a second, expression shifting into something more sympathetic. She knows the feeling.

"I'm sorry. There is no other way to reach them?"
falsify: (038)

B

[personal profile] falsify 2016-05-18 09:25 pm (UTC)(link)
It's pure coincidence that sees Eames here at the same time as Elizabeth, and he has a basket of his own to that fact. His food is... Well, it's not pizza and assorted junk, but he's not here to judge. He's here to pick out the best looking lemons, when he happens to look up the aisle and see Elizabeth struggling with a pineapple.

Eames allows himself a moment to be amused by the sight before he wanders over to pick one that looks healthier than the one she's holding and gives the stem a quick smell before he offers it out to her. "You'll want this one. Unless you like your fruit sour."
falsify: (Default)

[personal profile] falsify 2016-05-30 08:53 pm (UTC)(link)
"Lop off the top and bottom, and slice off the skin." He looks at the pineapple in the basket and then back to Elizabeth's face with a vaguely disinterested expression, like he's given these instructions a thousand times before. (He has not.) "It's a lot simpler than you might think."
falsify: (I was with your girlfriend last night)

[personal profile] falsify 2016-05-31 12:03 am (UTC)(link)
"Lemons were just the first stop," he says absently. They're a useful thing to have around after all; good for a salad, a drink, on some fried cod. Delicious.

Anyway. He lofts an eyebrow and gives the pineapple another look, "bread knife would take care of it if you've got one."
falsify: (021)

[personal profile] falsify 2016-05-31 12:29 am (UTC)(link)
He very nearly shudders at that. Eames values his personal space too much to even consider sharing a flat, let alone halls with a bunch of young adults who don't know how to clean up after themselves or put things away.

It sounds like literal hell.

"I'm still debating on dinner for tomorrow," and he glances at the shelves as they walk, "thought I'd wander around and hope inspiration strikes."

(no subject)

[personal profile] falsify - 2016-05-31 00:51 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] falsify - 2016-06-02 22:05 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] falsify - 2016-06-07 22:06 (UTC) - Expand