The open palm of desire wants everything, it wants everything...

[techniclybrill]

Shilo is curled up in the common room of the Conrad, flipping through a history book written in the looping handwriting of some angel of knowledge or other. She's doing her best to think about the book, instead of how much she misses home, or her dad, or even her stupid room. Because she doesn't. Really.

Martin is at the coffee shop, staring at

Comments

[nowinprint]

How, exactly, Dmitri Lang manages to find people she knows, in a city the size of Chicago, without asking where they'll be or planting tracking devices on their person or anything of the sort may well be the mystery of the ages. Maybe she's preternaturally lucky. Maybe she and Chicago have worked out an agreement. Maybe she's developed a unified theory of personal behavior capable of predicting decisions with Hari Seldon-like proficiency for individuals instead of populations. Who knows?

Whatever the case, though, she spotted a certain black-haired distracted wonder wandering around the park, and (because she does have a reputation to maintain, after all) stealthily looped around to find a vendor and liberated a couple of sno-cones. And then CLOSED IN FOR THE KILL.

Here defined as a sno-cone being shoved directly in front of Tosh's face with a cheerful "Moya camaya lubuimaya knizhka. It has been entirely too long since I've ambushed you."

[techniclybrill]

Tosh starts, stumbling back a few steps and then registering that it's Dmitri. Dmitri and a sno-cone. ...you know what, Tosh isn't even going to ask how this happens.

She accepts the sno-cone, looking slightly confused, but no more so than usual when Dmitri's around. "You do know you don't... have to ambush me, right? You could just come... visit me." You know, like a normal person. ...Dmitri is not a normal person.

[nowinprint]

"For someone who works for Torchwood, you have absolutely no sense of adventure," Dmitri says. "But fear not, Dmitri is here, armed with confectionery, ready and eager to make your life less ordinary. I descend without warning, approach with neither rhyme nor reason, unless rhyme or reason happens to be the style of the day. I'm very well acquainted, too, with matters mathematical; I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical. About binomial theorem I'm teeming with a lot o' news, with many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse. And advance warning is for squares."

She shrugs.

"Unless you'd like me to come visit. Then I can do that, too."

[techniclybrill]

Tosh has learned that you don't interrupt Dmitri while she's talking, just sort of stare in wonder until she pauses for breath. "Well, I wouldn't mind if you did..."

Dmitri would probably still show up if Tosh did mind, but still. Maybe her idea of "visit" involves some kind of advance warning. ...for a member of Torchwood, Tosh doesn't tend to have too much spontaneity in her life. Naturally, she'd be adopted by the one person who's practically spontaneity incarnate.

"Are you ever going to tell me how you keep finding me?" In the Tower is one thing. There are only so many places a Tosh can be there. Out in the park, on the other hand... Well, that's fairly impressive.

[please_see_me]

It's early, and there's no one who Dusty knows who's around, really, so when she practically throws herself into a free chair near Shilo, she doesn't really bother to hide the fact that she is, in fact, homesick, lonely, and miserable.

That's probably a group of emotions Shilo can relate to, as opposed to the over-energetic bounce that usually accompanies Dusty wherever she goes.

[howmuchisfate]

Shilo looks up when Dusty flops down, frowning at her a little. She's seen her around - she's usually grinning and very bouncy, and... it's kind of weird to see her looking so depressed. Shilo closes her book slowly, and eyes Dusty for a moment before speaking up.

"Are- are you okay?"

[please_see_me]

Dusty blinks a little, and then checks behind her to make sure Shilo's talking to her, and then tries to pull up a convincing smile.

She rather fails.

"Yeah!" she says, and then promptly loses that attempt at a smile as she grimaces. "Ow," she protests softly at her body. Stupid angelic... lie thingy.

[howmuchisfate]

Shilo frowns. She hasn't really... dealt with angels much. Okay, mostly, she only really talks to Daine - Shilo hasn't much got the hang of being social with people yet. But she does know, vaguely, about the lying thing, and...

"Yeah. Okay." Pause. "...do you need anything?" So she probably can't do much, but it seems like the right thing to say.

[nowinprint]

And, because (choose your explanation: 1-Time is wibbly-wobbly; 2-Dmitri Lang exhibits a Chuck Norris-like ability to exist in two places at once), Dmitri just so happens to be walking down a certain street at the same time as a certain ferret who happens to be a certain other of her friends. Not that she recognizes him as such. It's the haircut, or something.

Still, she can recognize a shifter when she sees one, and being one herself, she's got some incentive to promote a sense of bonhomie in the shifter community. She dodges her way through the passersby, dropping into a crouch in front of the ferret. People think she's strange for talking to small animals? Whatever. CLF catch sight of her? She can pretend she's just quirky. And if they really don't take that as an answer, she has enough tasers and mace on her to make their lives deeply uncomfortable, and she would not mind having to bust those out.

"Heading anywhere in particular, Mr. M. P. Furo?"

[thatsortofaman]

Oh look! A Dmitri!

The Doctor bounces excitedly in front of her for a few seconds, clearly pleased to see her. Things are much simpler when he's ferret-shaped. Ordinarily, seeing Dmitri comes with a certain amount of awkwardness and guilt, now it's just FRIEND and GOOD and maybe she'll PLAY WITH HIM! Or even better, get him where he wants to go.

Dmitri! Help me find John Smith. I need to bite him. Chances are he'll be distracted by something shiny before he gets around to biting him, but right now, it seems like the best plan.

[nowinprint]

Dmitri chuckles. Bouncy ferret is bouncy, clearly. And not hissing or spitting or otherwise acting unhappy to be stopped, so. "I'll take that as some sort of affirmative," she says, scooping up one (1) mustelid. "Okay, guy, welcome to Lang Land Transport: free seats available include the forearms, the shoulders, the messenger bag, and the top o'the head. Directions can be given manually-" she points down the street, in case the ferretbrain doesn't equate manually with pointing, "or in morse code. Or I could try to find you a toothpick pencil and a tiny composition book. In-flight movie is a walking your of downtown Chicago; meal service is whatever I've stashed in the outer pocket of my bag. Scritches are available upon request from your stewardess. Where are we headed?"

[thatsortofaman]

The Doctor promptly clambers up her arm to settle himself on her shoulder, hanging on to the strap of her messenger bag. And since she said morse code was acceptable - of course it is, Dmitri's brilliant - he taps out the answer to her question against her shoulder, with one paw. It takes a bit of effort to get the ferretbrain to concentrate, but eventually he manages, John Smith.

Then, she might not know where he is any more than she does. He pauses. Or Kashtta.

[findaconstant]

"I knew it!"

Here, Tosh. Have a Daniel.

He's not far from where she is and it's really only coincidence that he's spotted her; while he normally walks through this area anyway, he doesn't usually pay conscious attention to his surroundings. He's always watching around him with that power of his, though, on an unconscious level - just to be safe - and that's how he usually finds people.

He recognizes her from their quick meeting a few weeks ago and knows what she has in her hand, so he takes that as something of a green light to go ahead and talk to her.

"I was just asking Doc about whether or not people monitor the Rift's energy! Um." Maybe he should have said hello, first. "Hi. It's... Toshiko, right?"

[techniclybrill]

Tosh jumps a little, spinning to face Daniel, and then smiles quickly when she sees it's Daniel. "Daniel! Yes, it's Toshiko. Um... Tosh, if you'd rather." She spent so long with him back in the Conrad, helping the Doctor put together the Rift machine, this sort of distance seems strange. Then, Tosh is used to strange - this isn't so bad, as her life goes.

She holds up the device in her hand. "I was... I had this on me when I came through. It still works for Rift energy on this side, so I thought I'd see if I can work out some patterns. I almost had a Rift predictor program worked out, before I ended up here. I'd have to rebuild it completely, but I think I still remember enough of it to manage..."

Normally, it's a struggle getting Tosh to talk this much. Daniel, though, has the benefit of being familiar to her, and someone who might actually care about the things she tends to ramble about. (And not as thoroughly confusing as Dmitri, or as difficult to be around as Suzie.) Lucky him!

[findaconstant]

"Tosh. Right. I knew that." He returns her smile, fingers twitching absently at his side.

"Ah... you should try to rebuild it. If you remember that much, I mean. It'd probably be really useful, and then we can be here when people fall through, and that - that is what you meant, right? By 'Rift predictor'?"

Dan isn't exactly the most social butterfly in the world, even with people he knows - or sort-of knows - but talking is always easier when there's science involved. Second language, and all that.

[techniclybrill]

"Sort of?" she says, with a tiny smile. "In Cardiff we didn't actually have many people falling through. Mostly... technology. And aliens. Lots of aliens. But with enough data, I might be able to work out how to predict when people are coming through. Have a welcoming committee there for them or something. At the very least, I should be able to get it to tell us when and where a Rift will be opening, if not exactly what might come through."

[crimeatthetime]

OHAI THAR, MARTIN.

Adrian was just on his way to the coffee shop. That's really what he needs right now. Something to make him jittery when he's already getting the itch to kill. Seeing the stone-faced angel bursting out through the door sends him to a near-literal screeching halt.

Fuck his life.

"Uh. Hi."

[astrongerbeacon]

Martin comes to a stop almost as quickly as Adrian, and stares at him for a second. It takes a moment for him to recognize the man. When he does, he kind of wishes he didn't. Some muscle in his shoulders twitches.

"...hi. You're Rachel's demon, yeah?" And Rachel's demon pretty much sums up Martin's position on the matter. Rachel's, so he's withholding whatever opinions he might have, so Martin will tolerate him on sufferance. Rachel's, so if anything happens to her... Well, not all guardian angels necessarily need a calling.

[crimeatthetime]

A few months ago that would have made him twitch, glare, retort. Now it just makes him grin. "Yes, I am."

Oh, right. Adrian never did apologize for that trying-to-choke-Martin-while-the-archangel-attempted-to-save-his-life. Thing. That happened, that one time. He scratches his neck and squinches up one eye and generally looks like a guilty kid. Rachel has that effect on his moods. "Ah, I meant to say... Before, when I was at the Conrad. Thank you. And I'm sorry for--" he gives one hand an awkward little wave. "Trying to kill you?"

[astrongerbeacon]

Martin presses his lips together and quietly informs the part of him that's pointing out that this is a demon and he really should be putting a bullet in his head rather than chatting with him that it can take a long walk. Off the pier. That part of him doesn't seem to be listening.

"Yeah. Well. Blood loss will mess with your head." Being a demon will do that too, but we'll just move on by that point like we don't want to kill each other, shall we? He pauses a moment. "You're welcome."

They probably could get more awkward, but they'd have to be really trying.