(Untitled)

[i_spoiled_it]

Steph is Hatching Plans. They're very hatchy.

She's also hatching them over the washing machine, because she's doing laundry. Mmm, the clean delicious chemicalgasm smell of laundry powder particles.

... ew.

Comments

[neraiutsu]

Neil is coming downstairs to check if the washing machine is busy.

Apparently so, then. He nods a polite hello to Steph.

[i_spoiled_it]

Steph glances up from her towel at someone's approach, and grins at him. She's generally a very grinny person. "Hi! I'm Steph!"

[neraiutsu]

"Hi Steph."

Her grinniness is catching. Now he's grinning, too.

"I'm Neil."

[i_spoiled_it]

Ooh, grins. New people who smile are awesome! Steph dumps the last of her washing into the machine, turns it on, and turns around to offer a hand. "I've seen you a couple times but I haven't said hi yet properly. Hi! Nice to meetcha."

[neraiutsu]

"Nice to meet you too."

He's wearing gloves. (It's a thing.) His handshake is comfortable and friendly, the kind you'd say belonged to a good, honest person if you were the type to assign meanings to handshakes.

"I guess I'm kind of distinctive, huh?"

(This would be a reference to the eyepatch. He's still not entirely used to it.)

[i_spoiled_it]

Steph would like to say she isn't one for judging on appearances - but a comfortable friendly handshake helps. She glances at his eyepatch. "I guess. It could be worse!"

It totally could be! Zuko is worse, f'r'xample.

[neraiutsu]

Cheerful, "It certainly could."

For one thing, he could lose the patch.

What's underneath just isn't something anybody wants to see.

[i_spoiled_it]

Steph nods, grinning. "So what do you do? Superhero?"

[neraiutsu]

"Nothing so exciting," he says, since his measure of superheroism is Val Bell.

"I used to be a... soldier, back in my world." His tone says the statement is margely true but hides a more complex reality. "Now I mostly help Steve fix things."

[i_spoiled_it]

"Sounds like fun." Steph's grin is understanding - 'soldier' so rarely means anything simple. "Steve, I mean. Hey, how's he doing these days? I heard he had some bad news."

[neraiutsu]

"He's... could be better, could be worse. I think having a project helps him."

Of which Neil is quite proud, since he's the source of the project.

[i_spoiled_it]

Steph nods, rubbing her nose with the heel of one hand. "Poor kid. I'm not really a fan of our people getting hurt," she remarks, slightly dryly.

[neraiutsu]

"Neither am I," Neil admits.

And smiles, because yeah, he's starting to think of the farm as 'our people'. Just a little.

[i_spoiled_it]

Steph approves of people liking the farm; Neil gets a grin. "Everything's going OK here, right?" she asks, leaning back against the washing machine comfortably. "I haven't, uh, asked Babs yet."

Because ... she's avoiding Babs. Kind of a lot.

"But it's all going smoothly?"

[neraiutsu]

"It looks fine to me, granted that I've only been here a few weeks."

[i_spoiled_it]

"Oh, you'd notice if it wasn't," Steph assures him, grinning. "People's hands would start getting cut off, for a start."

It's not actually funny, but there's a point in every warrior's life where the gruesome has to be funny for sanity's sake, and Steph - like a disproportionately large percentage of the Cooper farm population - hit it very young.