Maybe You Can Hire...

[Star]

Wheels up at twenty-three hundred.

The Van was on it's First Mission. Pop Quiz: How do you make an awesome van more awesome? With Junk. More precisely, replacement parts and armor. Plans were made. Maps consulted. Obscenities uttered. Gatorade drank. Dark clothing secured.

Eventually, they arrived. The first plan? El Monte Military junkyard. Nearly eight hours away, the idea was scrapped much like it's contents when the weight of armor plates was considered. The tricky part? Avoiding salvage and finding junk. And they had. There, in front of them, a tall but insincere chain link fence was secured by a rusting padlock, barring them from their vansformation.

A hand shifted the van into park, and tugged down the dark ballcap that held the mop captive. He was totally ninja. Because hat. He looked over at Avis with his Serious Face -- this is A Mission thus the Serious Face.

"Oh. Hey. Did you ever get those lock picks?"

#avis #star #avistar

[Avis]

"Never leave home without them," Avis replied, voice soft, slipping a box of paper clips out of her pocket just enough so that he could glimpse it before she let it slide back down to whence it came.

"'Course, I think a shim'll work better here. One sec."

Thumbs hooked behind the backpack straps and she slipped it off and set it down. The hiss of a zipper followed and next appeared a marker and a piece of cut pop can. It was like a rectangle except that an ovular nib stuck out from it's side. She set the pen along the nib and quickly bent the shim into the proper rounded shape before disappearing the pen, sealing the pack shut, and returning it to its place hanging off of her shoulders.

"Lockpicking so easy an eight year old can do it," she mumbled, lips quirking in the start of what was almost a sneer as she stared at the twisted bit of metal.

"I don't know," she said after a beat, looking up. "It's more fun with picks. You think time really matters here?"

[Star]

He watched with interest. The principle? He knew it -- much like a Slim Jim on a car door. Because bumping. The shape was carefully filed away for Future Reference, and a couple of nods punctuated the interest.

"Cool."

A little grin slipped out. He was more of a lifter than a picker, but professional respect. "I think it was Dickens? That wrote about Fagin teaching kids by hanging bells on stuff first." Bells were totally A Thing now, especially in Hollywood. A little derisive sound accompanied an hand splaying of Whatever! "I think we have all night? I mean, look at the place..."

A few lights here and there cast misshapen shadows over the piles of steel and refuse. Somewhere, a cicada serenaded them. He turned off the van and hopped out. Not for lack of confidence -- file under Gas Prices and Empty Wallet. He kicked at the fence, watching it do a metallic shiver and ring softly at them as he gauged it's height for climbing.

"So... Consilium? How was that? You know, the whole, you know..." Well, it wasn't really a trial, but, whatever. And, sure, he was Keeping An Eye Out, but curious. Hands dug into jacket pockets, pulling it tighter. He totally needed to get some thermal long sleeves. Summer Henleys just weren't cutting it.

Then, inspiration. One of the hands came out with his phone and he swiped his way to the timer app.

[Avis]

"I kinda avoid Dickens. He's too boring. Also, he was afraid of statues. That's just weird," Avis said, stepping up to the gate to put her shim to work. Fact was, it might not, depending on how rusted the lock was. Obviously it could still open, but ironically Avis found that rusted locks were usually the hardest to open. After all, a good picker wasn't really defeating the lock so much as manipulating it, and rust just made that harder.

Ah well. They'd get it open. One way or another. She was actually kind of glad that the lock was going to be a bit more difficult. Gave her more time to put off thinking about that shit show.

Not that it could be put off forever. About the time she got the shim to finally fuckin' slip down the shank and slide the locking bar back with a little 'snick' sound (how much she loved that sound), she finally acknowledged to herself that she couldn't put the question off forever.

"What do you mean? You were there," Avis replied, tossing the opened lock to Star, sans shim, as she turned to speak.

[Star]

"Well, he got paid by the word, didn't he? I dunno. Some of his stuff, not so much, but I reeeaaaaaally loved 'Two Cities'," he mused quietly.

Fingers itched, legit, and more than once they flexed; one in his pocket, one holding the phone. They wanted to reach out and touch the lock, feel that tactile sense of parts moving, falling into place, being coaxed to function and release their secrets. A nod and finger tap to stop the timer accompanied the 'snick'. A lightning quick hand juggled the phone as he caught the projectile, his other hand appearing to tuck the phone away.

"Well. Yeah? But I wasn't, like, part of it?" He shrugged and pulled the chain free, each link ratcheting against the fence like a roller coaster ride.

Whoops. Because loud. Whatever.

"Ummmm. I guess I'm just, uh, curious? Wondering if you regretted it? Since I sort of kind of..." Another shrug. He looped the chain and hung it on the fence and began swinging it open.

"I'm not trying to grill you or anything. We can talk about something else?"

[Avis]

It took Avis about the length of the rattling chain to figure out just what Star was referring to. He had this amazing ability to speak with complete vagueness yet still seem to be saying something. She was pretty sure it was a habit he'd gotten into during his scamming days. Like, the lack of specifics would leave holes that the listener would have to fill in, and since they were the ones filling it in it wouldn't be wrong, and since he'd been the one speaking it would seem like he wasn't wrong and that he agreed with them. It was playing with expectations. Or using them, rather.

The trouble was, there were a lot of times were Avis was trying to hear his expectations, not hers, and since he didn't actually say anything that would reference his expectations she couldn't tell what the hell he was talking about! Sometimes, anyways. Thankfully this time there were some context clues.

"Since you kind of supported me?" she asked him, arms crossing. "That's what you did. You didn't convince me to want anything I didn't want, or to try anything I wasn't considering trying. And I don't mind talking about it, I just need some f...more words about what you want to know," she explained, reigning in her errant frustration. "So, if you're wondering how becoming Councilor went, it didn't go great. It was basically a shit show, but at the end of the day Ariadne backed down, and since Jono had my back, that left me."

[Star]

Huh.

Awkward? A little. Sometimes train rides involve falling off.

He leaned against the fence, bouncing back against it slowly like the springs of a crappy bed mattress. "You know how sometimes, you think something would be great if it happens, but for more than one reason? And they're totally different reasons, so if," hands came close shifting to one side, "this reason," they shifted to the other, "knew about this reason, then it seems wack? Like... not right? Tainted?"

See? The Deal is still The Deal.

"So, yeah. I'm totally struggling with words. I'm sorry. I totally support you. Because of... who you are. Not...," a smile crept out and he gestured between them. "But. I'm also glad it wasn't someone else, and that has nothing to do with supporting you."

Hands reseated his hat. Because mop.

"Yeah, I'm curious how that whole thing went down, but in a car wreck watching kind of way? But since you were like, part of it, I guess it's insensitive to ask a passenger how their wreck was. But that wasn't really what I wanted to know. I meant... was it what you thought it would be? Did it feel... right? Like you made a difference, for the better?"

He was pretty sure she hadn't enjoyed it.

[Avis]

"No," Avis replied bluntly, hair briefly whipping about as the Warlock gave a violent shake of her head. "It feels like I did what I had to. That I did it so something worse wouldn't happen, not because I thought I would make anything better. It feels like a -- like a storm is coming, but everyone is too busy throwing shit at me to realize that I'm doing this so I can throw some sandbags down before the flood. I mean, not everyone. Like, you're not, and Jono's not, but fuck. It just makes me angry."

She shook her head again, the motion gentle by comparison, and her anger leached away in the airstream of a sigh. "I'm still glad I did it, though. And I'm glad that you asked. I feel better now. But, uh, speaking of that whole mess, how do you feel about the trial?" she asked, arms slipping down so her hands could find their way into her pockets. "You seemed, I don't know. Not reluctant. More like, begrudging. Not happy with the process."

[Star]

"Wait, what?"

A head bobbed inward towards the steel graveyard. It's not trespassing if you leave the ride outside, right?

"Isn't, hmmmm, not letting something worse, or preventing something, the same thing as making something better? Unless I'm not getting that? That it's just how it felt. I know it's a super Visus thing to say, but lesser of evils and all that." Even with shadows cast by his hat, there was a hint of urgency in his tone. Guardian, yo. He had to believe that, and he'd believe it even if he wasn't a Guardian.

"I mean, yeah. I can see it. The angry part? And, yeah, I wasn't super thrilled, and they're kind of the same thing." Hands spread, then came together, before separating a finger coming up.

"Okay. Here's my thing. I didn't get the sentencing. And I feel totally weird talking about this, because you were part of it? So, obviously, I don't mean this as finger pointing or whatever. Anyway, what I didn't get was, it seemed very different. Between Weave and Striker. Kind of like a lot of people said, 'Hey his got dispelled so no bigs'. Except, they did the same thing, justifications aside. It seems like the easy out. To say 'No Harm No Foul'. Like, wow, oh no, Striker has to stand guard duty. That's like telling a Guardian he has to go on a stake-out. But this isn't about Striker, or what he did, just... that they were treated differently, just because I covered."

The brim of his hat swiveled as he looked around, angling towards a taller pile.

"And I think that's why people are going to treat you different? Because you're not easy. You won't say the nice words that make things go away."

True Fact: Most people don't like conflict. Give them an opportunity to avoid it, and they will. He couldn't help but glance over, downward.

Some people wore their hearts on their sleeves. Her? She'd cut her defiance into hers.

[Avis]

"Ya know, that's funny," Avis replied with a bleak smile. "About the nice words thing. 'Cause I'm also not happy about how the trial went. I don't think either of the sentences were good enough, but I kinda shut up after a while and I did say the nice words. Seemed futile not to, like all arguing might've done was condemn what I was trying to say. I mean, Aquinas literally overrode any proposals that he didn't agree with. Which, I kinda get why he did that, since he was right, there was no representation for the accused, but that's also his fault. If he was afraid of the trial turning into what it did, he should have postponed it. Or, maybe I'm just copping out on responsibility. Either way, I guess it's done now. Only thing to do is try to use it as an example of what not to do next time, right?" she asked, her tone suggesting that the question was anything but rhetorical.

"And I guess you're right about lesser evils. Sometimes you do need to sin to make the world a better place."