baby baby baby

[notcooldude]

See, the first time he'd needed new clothes on the new island (the one that wasn't his) Sawyer'd gone for him. For his own good, or at least that's what he'd said. Given how messy his first couple hours had been, he'd basically needed new clothes immediately, so when he was told to stay where he was and don't get in any more trouble, he did what he

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[little_moons]

And suddenly, there's a little blonde girl with lopsided pigtails and big blue eyes practically standing on top of him, bracing a hand on his arm as she leans over to grab a pair of fuzzy, green pom-pom socks from out of the box.

"Hi," she says, as if she's just realized she's not alone. She rolls up onto the balls of her feet, flashing him a brightly disarming grin and asks, "Do you like my shoes?" When she drops back down onto her heels, they flash with little blue and red lights.

I'm only a few steps behind, so that's how I find her, talkin' to a guy I've never seen before but is pretty fuckin' hard to miss.

"Hey," I say to him, offering a crooked smirk, "Sorry. She's kinda got boundary issues."

[notcooldude]

He doesn't jump at the feel of a small hand on his arm, but he does suck in a breath and move his head to get a good look at who, or what, it is. There's just been too much uncertainty and violence. Too much uncertainty in his life in the last month. He's not exactly some sort of traumatized war vet, but it is enough to make him look twice when he thinks he sees something out of the corner of his eye. It's enough to make him ask more questions than are necessarily polite sometimes.

It's just a kid, though. A tiny girl, blonde, cute as a button, should be doing commercials for tons of money and earning a college fund, but she's here. On a magical island, Like him.

"Hey," he says, quickly trying to mask his startle and his confusion with a broad smile. "I think your shoes are awesome. They didn't really make shoes like that when I was your age, but if they did I'd have wanted like, sixteen pairs. Did they come from--" He points a large finger toward the box. "--in there? Is there a trick

[little_moons]

"A trick?" she asks, peering into the box like something magical's going to come out. To us, the box itself still seems pretty fuckin' bizarre, but to the ones that were born here, it's all they've ever known. No shopping malls or catalogs. Just a box that dispenses weird clothes of its own free will.

Ruffling a hand over her hair and dropping down to sit on the other side of her, I tell him, "Yeah, me too." My boundaries have never really matched anybody else's.

"You must be new," I say to him, pulling the fuzzy socks over Mack's hands which sends her into a fit of shrill giggles. "It always seems to give the worst stuff to the newbies. Either that, or the rest of us are just used to it."

[notcooldude]

"Yeah, like," he says to her, distracted as he moves to peer into the box again. "A magic word or something, you know, to get it to give you what you--"

But before Hurley can finish, the dark-haired guy is answering that question for him, and all he can do is listen intently. All he should do, really. If they've been here for a while, they know better than him, and Hurley's learned by now that it usually pays to listen to the natives. They have a good idea of how stuff works, even if they don't always want to share those ideas. Everyone here so far seems friendly enough, though.

He smiles at how happy the girl seems to be. He never knew he missed the sound of kids laughing until hearing it wasn't an option for a while. "You can't tell?" he quips, before adding, more seriously, "I've been here, like, a week. And the last time I needed more clothes, Sawyer went to go get them for me, sooo ... this is probably where I say something like 'they finally decided it was okay to let me wander around on my own on the crazy magic island.'"

[thegreat_ashby]

"Evil incarnate," Lew stated. And no, he didn't feel like he was exaggerating in the least. "And possibly a lesbian, but not the good kind. So unless you just plan to wipe your ass with that, you should probably just put that back in the box."

[notcooldude]

"He does sorta look like that chick from 'Juno,'" Hurley admitted, staring at the screen-print on the tee. It was a big screen-print. It was a big shirt.

And it was, sadly, the only one he had just yet that was going to work for him. "You can put stuff back in?" he asked, mildly dubious. With only a slightly guilty glance toward the mess of cast-offs he'd surrounded himself with on the floor.

[thegreat_ashby]

"Well, yeah. It's not exactly a square peg, round hole dilemma. It never empties and the contents are always changing." Neither was the thing's awful taste in clothing and even worse sense of humor. It had sort of outdone itself this time, though, and even proved that it had shitty taste in music, too.

[notcooldude]

"Awesome!" Hurley said, and gathered up from around him the truly worst of the clothes he'd managed to pull, dumping them all back into the box. He squinted up at the other dude.

"How long've you been here? I figure it's been a while if you know stuff. I mean, I just got here, like, a week ago. When the everything was made of candy, so that was weird."

[burnwithus]

The box always seems to give her clothing that was made for boys, but she wears them regardless. Either that or girlish, ruffled clothing that was too small for her. Clothes meant for Prim or Madge. Call her paranoid, but Katniss knows that's the box's intention, considering the amount of familiar-but-not-quite items she's pulled out in the past few months. Sometimes she leaves everything there and has to run to the forest in order to breathe, but the fact remained that her store of clothing was getting lower and they were always getting dirt and tree bark stuck to them.

She tries again, stubbornly unwilling to be beaten by a stupid box. Katniss shifts the bow and quiver higher onto her shoulder, a stray feather or two from the birds she'd shot and dropped off at the kitchen sticking to her torso.

Katniss pauses and spares a sidelong glance at the shirt, her brows furrowing. "I have no idea."

[notcooldude]

The bow and quiver get an odd squint from Hurley as he notices them over this chick's shoulder. There's something about her. Not quite like Danielle, the crazy French lady, but ... well, whatever. He really needs to learn how to not stare at people. Totally rude.

Reaching out, he moves to pluck the lone feather from her torso, not realizing how over-stepping that might be. Too long in totally surreal, not-real-world situations to think twice about doing it.

"You got a feather," he says.

[burnwithus]

It's such a Victor's way of thinking that the arena extends beyond its physical boundaries. It's easy to think that when this island reminds her too much of the Quell's beach, when the Cornucopia lies somewhere in a forest not far from here. Katniss knows that she's still being played; the only difference is that she has no idea of who is doing it, or for what purpose.

He reaches out to touch her and she steps back automatically, every muscle tensed; eyes alight and suspicious. Ready for an attack. If his movements had been quicker and less languid, she might have lashed out. As it was, Katniss takes deep breaths, focusing her gaze on the feather. He looks apparently harmless.

She knows that can't be true, though.

"...Thanks," Katniss breathes, face still tight and fierce as she reaches out to take the feather from him, slipping it into her quiver. No need to waste it; maybe she'll use it to fletch new arrows.

[notcooldude]

"Woah, hey!" he says, after she takes that feather from him, and he tugs his arm back as if he's been burned, or bitten by an angry animal. He clutches it to his chest, not wary so much as hurt. He gets over it soon enough, going back to the piles of clothes he's considering, like it never happened - except he can't meet her eyes anymore.

"Geez. I didn't mean anything by it, lady. I was just trying to be helpful. I'm Hurley."

[velation]

Searching for clothing just didn't have the same appeal if one didn't have to do any work for it. She wanted the joy of having to choose between stores, of needing to debate between colors and fabrics, the weight of several shopping bags weighing her down on the way to Bebop. Pulling clothes out of a cardboard box, no matter how inexplicably magical it supposedly was, felt like charity. She didn't even have to deal with the pain of watching her account funds draining down to zilch. So it was with a skeptical, almost disgusted look that Faye peered down at the box, heels clicking on the floor. Only desperation drove her to that blasted box at all.

She needed shoes that were easier to walk in. As great as her boots were, they didn't take well to sand or humidity.

"Not a face you want to be wearing on your shirt, unless you want all the parents here to be wary of letting their kids around you," Faye snorted, walking around both man and box languidly before she crouched down, peering directly into the pile of clothes in the box.

[notcooldude]

Hurley would never complain about free, ready-to-wear clothes, if he could actually find some that fit him. Before he'd played the numbers, before he'd won the money, he just wore what they could find to fit. After, he'd had it made to fit him. Life worked that way, when you had money.

He was so glad he didn't have it anymore. He missed his mom. He hoped she was happy somewhere.

But when a shadow fell over him as he sat on the floor, digging through the box, his eyes narrowed and he turned, with a quick whip of long hair, to look up to see the owner of the female voice. Who was, yeah.

Sorta hot.

And also saying ridiculous crap. Giving her a face that very much said 'I know you are but what am I,' he said, voice the very picture of confused outrage, "Dude, you're wearing yellow hotpants."

[velation]

The whole point of the outfit was to get noticed. To throw people off their game. Because, quite frankly, it didn't matter how often a con man did his job, a good pair of legs and a bright, eye-searing color were still more often than not enough to buy a couple seconds' worth of time, during which Faye could easily incapacitate a bounty and sling him over her shoulder for a quick bit of cash. Of course, on Tabula Rasa, the hotpants were a little less practical and much more habit, but still, Faye saw absolutely no reason to tone down what she wore, and for the most part, she was pretty sure that the island damn well appreciated it.

And in spite of the way that the man on the ground seemed to be voicing a protest, Faye couldn't help thinking that his outrage was, truly, trying a little too hard.

"I'm wearing yellow hotpants," Faye agreed, waving her hand idly to the side. "And, let's face it, I pull them off. Wearing someone's blown-up face all over your front, though, that's tacky no matter who you are."

[notcooldude]

He stared at her, still defensive, for a long, awkward silence, before finally acquiescing with, "Yeah, okay. Maybe you pull them off a little. Maybe." Which really was trying a little too hard at being disinterested in whatever this chick was selling, more or less, but Hurley knew things. Even after Libby, he knew things. He knew when he had, like, a .5% chance, and he had about a .5% chance with this lady anyway.

So why bother letting himself get any ideas otherwise.

Hugo gave a rough nod toward the box. "This shirt fits. None of these other shirts--" he gave a wide wave to the disorganized mess of fabric. "--fit. So if you just hate the idea of this one so much, why don't you try getting this thing to work right, okay?"

[tricksthetreat]

"Heck if I know, fucked if I care."

Trixa lounged in the hallway, looking at the... well new guy? Had to be new, most people who'd been on the island awhile just dug through the box, tossing things aside with muttered curses until something kinda worked. Or perhaps he was just one of those constantly surprised people.

Either or, he was in her way. She needed a bathing suit of some sort, since she'd finally convinced herself to give that windsurfing gear she'd been gifted with a try.

"You done yet?"

[notcooldude]

"No," he said stubbornly, "I'm not." Not because he was not, but because when people talked like that at him, it made him want to be more stubborn than usual. He was stubborn to start with.

Turning to look to see who was coming over - a lady, obviously - he pressed up off of the ground. Only to slip and tumble backward onto it again, landing on his ass.

"Gyah!" Hugo shouted, pure, honest-to-god confused terror on his features. For about half a second. "S-sorry. You just scared the crap out of me. I thought you were this dead chick I used to ... " Know? Probably, definitely not the right word for Ana Lucia. " ... you know what, long story. Totally irrelevant. Nevermind." He nudged the box toward her with his bare toes.

[tricksthetreat]

"You thought I was dead?" Trixa's eyes shot up, that was a new one on her. Sure, he wasn't the first person to mistake her for someone else, but he was certainly the first to be frightened of her on sight.

Moving cautiously, she approached, "You okay?" He'd hit the ground pretty solidly when he fell back and the box was temporarily forgotten. She just hoped he hadn't hurt anything.

[notcooldude]

"I thought you were ... " Hugo muttered, not quite meeting her eyes as he pressed his palms onto the floor again, and at least tried to get himself back up. It didn't work the first time. He really had gone down on his tail-bone hard.

"No, it's stupid. Stuff like that doesn't happen here. Sawyer told me so. None of that crap happens here, so. Just ignore me, I'm new. I mean, I'm Hurley."

He looked up, as if willing her to accept that as an apology. She certainly deserved an apology, being mistaken for a ghost.