goldfinches | TEXTINGS ✥ OPEN TO ALL

[ You could have just called, Mori. ]

Didn't see you during sims today.

Did you chuck a sickie or something?

[ooc: The phrase "chuck a sickie" is Aussie slang that means to call into work sick, sometimes (but not always) dishonestly. ]

Edited 2013-12-18 03:06 (UTC)

[ Chuck, pls. She hasn't "chucked a sickie" since — ever. ]

Complications with Gypsy's fluid transfer system.
I had to oversee a full system flush.

[ She'd go into it but she knows Chuck would tune out after the first clause and a half. ]

Why — did you miss me?

[ Adolescent sarcasm. Mako dislikes the fact that she's even still capable of it and normally she isn't, but. ]

[ Mako, don't kid yourself. He totally knows. He's just being difficult. It's a very special talent of his. Can't you tell?]

That old rust bucket's just falling apart all over the goddamn place.

[ And she's right. Chuck only really read about 1/4 of her text message, anyway. But he knows she won't take it personally. ]

Flatter yourself, why don't ya.

[ Obvious banter. It's a comfortable routine. ]

Edited 2013-12-18 03:57 (UTC)

[ Mako suspects Chuck mostly just asked because of the twinge of adolescent glee he gets whenever he's allowed to type out the phrase "chuck a sickie". When they were children it had been kind of a joke. Chuck chucking a sickie. —get it? ]

She's the only one to ever come back from the Bay.

[ Oblivion Bay, where jaegers go to die (and those that are already dead find their final resting place). ]

She'll get the job done, even without Striker's new car smell.

[ Don't talk trash about her jaeger, Chuck. She might not be a pilot but that's her girl. ]

[ She knows him too well. He'll have to up the ante. ]

Yeah, let's hope so.

[ But he's not exactly optimistic. This is scathingly sardonic at best. There is something unspoken but important here: Chuck sees rangers as extensions of their weapons. His doubt doesn't lie in the technicalities of the machine (it almost never does). He is voicing his concerns about a certain person and, hint, it's not her. ]

She might pack a punch, but we'll see who's in like flynn out on the field.

[ Chuck's confidence is speedy and dirty and relentless. Don't try knocking his faith in Striker, Mako. It just won't work. ]

[ooc: The phrase "in like flynn" is Aussie slang for "quickest to achieve a desired goal."]

Edited 2013-12-18 21:26 (UTC)

[ He's not the only one who's concerned with Raleigh Becket. Mako has spent months — years — going over those files, pouring herself into Gypsy's veins, familiarizing herself with what went wrong in Anchorage and building in safeguard after safeguard to keep them from being caught out in the open a second time.

Chuck's right, isn't Gypsy that's the problem, it's about what happens in the Drift and who's plugged into it. But Mako isn't the type to go around sewing seeds of dissent amongst the marshal's men. This was his plan and she needed to trust him (and she did trust him — if only he could see that she should be with him). ]

He's the only one qualified to pilot her.

[ Well, him and— ]

And his copilot.

He's the Marshall's bright idea. [And he'll leave it at that. It's a dodgy and underhanded means to express his utter dysphoria with the situation and it's likely the most polite that Chuck will ever get.] As far as I'm concerned, he's still suss as all hell.

By the way, I know you have my sunnies. I want those back.

[ooc: "Suss" is Aussie slang for "suspicious" or "suspect". And "sunnies" means "sunglasses/aviators".]

Edited 2013-12-18 23:24 (UTC)

The Marshal is the Marshal for a reason.

[ Which is all she'll say on the subject as well. Sometimes it can be a tricky line to navigate, being both Pentecost's daughter and one of his rangers. But Mako has long since learned how to perfect the art, the former having been whittled down to something small and put aside, the later having grown as time passed, giving even the most earnest moments a sheen of contained professionalism. ]

The candidates showing is tomorrow.
We'll all have an opportunity to see what Becket as to offer.

[ If he wanted to, Mako knows Chuck could start a row over Raleigh right now.

(She hopes he doesn't. They'll be time for that later.) ]

And what would I be doing with your sunglasses?

[ It's a trick question because she does have them. She'd stolen them out of the inside pocket of his jacket the last time they'd seen one another in Sydney. (—an unseasonably cold winter, a storm threatening the distant horizon and Mako's hair whipping about her face as another breeze kicks up around the both of them. Neither of them talk but they never really have. Whether Mako forgets that she has the glasses or if she takes them on purpose is anybody's guess—) ]

I'll see you there.

Did you really think I'd miss that debacle?

[There is, casually, no mention of that "has-been". He is deliberate about this, almost petulant.]

You're a lousy liar, Mori.

[He flashes a brief smile down at the phone, knowing she will never see it; it is an honest one, full of teeth, and slightly cruel (oh, he knows, but what can he do? His kindness has run out. It is so foreign to him now - ). Still, he hides it behind the spurs of his knuckles. He remembers Sydney and the predatory nature of the sky and how he turned his collar up against the rain, patting his jacket down, feeling for the familiar wireframe of those aviators, and seeing out of the corner of his eyes, the way Mako's shoulders shifted like tiny tectonic plates. She had been giggling at some furtive joke and it was like the sound was some corporeal thing wrecking through her limbs -]

Edited 2013-12-19 01:53 (UTC)

[ She's tempted to remind Chuck that they're all rangers and that Raleigh, whether he liked it or not, had gone and succeeded at the same program that had made the both of them. Mako's not sure why she's tempted, though she suspects it has something to do with just being contrary.

But they're talking (for a generous definition of the word "talk") and she doesn't know when that will happen again.

(Funny, how one of the few constants in her life can still manage to be that, well — inconstant.) ]

You should take better care of your things, Mr. Hansen.

[ Mr. Hansen. The affectation is almost laughable, like she's poking fun at her own professionalism. It feels dangerous to Mako, like she's tipping too far too far in a single direction rather than trying to stay focused on dead center. But she knows where those sunglasses are; in fact, she's kept very good care of them ever since she rediscovered them amongst her things while unpacking. These days they sit on the low shelf that runs alongside her bed, right beside her alarm clock, tuck behind a small glass figurine Pentecost had bought her when she was still a little girl. ]

[ A beat.

Two.

Three.

Then: ] I want to fight him.

[ Mako regrets pressing send almost immediately. (Chuck's always had that effect on her.) ]

[When you're a successful Ranger, your whole life is spread open to the public; you're a fighter for show. You're a headline. Glory and gore go hand-in-hand at the Shatterdome. So, unsurprisingly, Chuck is familiar with Raleigh's stats; he can read him like the specs on a warhead. That's not the point. (...He just doesn't have the patience or the right sense of vulnerability to explain to her why he felt...betrayed by this guy, how he felt cheated of the idea that heroes can't fall --

because everybody can fall, can't they -- ?

Their conversations always end up like this, mired in their own miasmic silences and the bitter tang of their individual inability to simply open up.)

It's time to change the subject.]

Oi, don't call me that. Makes me feel like my old man.

[There is an obvious playfulness strung between them now, delicate as spider-silk (and doomed to be short-lived). Chuck knew she was trying to rouse a rise out of him for fun.

And it's working.]

Edited 2013-12-20 05:38 (UTC)

[Oh.

He types a reply.

He immediately erases it.

He tries again.

Then:] I thought you weren't up to jockey.

[...and, yeah, Chuck knows that he's her perpetual "poor life choice". Oddly enough, he actually counts this as an achievement.]

Edited 2013-12-20 05:49 (UTC)

[ The brief stint of playfulness they'd been able to muster is immediately squashed by the sudden shift in conversation. Momentum is so rarely often on their side, either halted by the uneven start-stop of their exchanges or otherwise simply barreling forward, snowballing into conflict or misunderstanding. When they were children things had been easier, but isn't that always the case with kids? Both angry and seething in their young skins they had served as reflections of one another; served until the mirror cracked, splintering them both in directions opposite of each other.

Chuck's right. She isn't up to jockey, but that doesn't mean she doesn't want to. At the end of the day, she would defer but up until that moment she would fight — not furiously or explosively, the way that Chuck might have, but with a restrained tenacity shored up by conviction. ]

I'm not.

[ I should be. ]

TEXTINGS ✥ OPEN TO ALL

WOW U HAVE GOT SOME NERVE o3o

NEENER NEENER

OMFG U CHILD --

YOU STARTED IT WEH

FINE I TAKE ALL THE BLAME WEH (OAO);;;

DRIES YOUR TEARS

CRIES YOU A RIVER TBH

ACTUALlY SCRATCH THAT I THINK I'lL DRINK THEM INSTEAD

/GETS YOU A FANCY CHALICE I GUESS

1/2 WOW THIS IS LIKE SERVICE DELUXE HERE SHAY I'M IMPRESSED

2/2

1/2

2/2

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