Welcome to Gaia! ::

Fanning her tacky nails, C waved at Selena, still pinning the polish brush between for thumb and forefinger.

"HAAAY babe! You know it!" Her voice was so excited and squeaky and terrible, but it was obvious that she was thrilled to see her. "Where were you? Doing anything good? Doing anyone good?" She laughed so obnoxiously at her own joke that she almost drowned out the sound of the two approaching men. Which would have been absolutely terrible, judging from her reactions to the two of them.

"Of course I am! Gotta get my daaaance owwwnnn for the last night before the Y2K. You gonna go out with a bang? I know just how you c- OH MY GAWD HEY."

She flung herself into the hug, squeezing him so tightly that she seemed to have forgotten she was holding gold nail polish. It covered Mark's back in a bunch of shaky, shimmering, stinking splotches. "It's been all good! Did everything go okay for you?"

Pulling away, she examined the others. "Was anyone else in the middle of-"

She was interrupted for a second time as she felt a tug on her coat. Her face held an uncharacteristic look of terror.

"I was gonna pick up a postcard, but with the interruption at all..." There was sinking feeling that flooded through her, nagging that she'd just ******** up.






((oops I quoted instead of editing fml))

"Don't be like that, girl," he pleaded with Selena, to no avail, unaware of the long streaks of polish running down his back. But it was way too much of an effort to walk all the way to the charging stones when he was here with the fun people who weren't Selena.

"Thanks, man." He gratefully tried to accept the light from the other hunter, except for how there was no light. God he would kill to get this cigarette lit.

"Tell me about it," Mark sighed, wandered over, and clapped Wolf on the back. Mark thought everyone with a FEAR weapon went a special kind of crazy from it, and he made it kind of his thing to fill in for the unspoken reply they were probably expecting from their darling inanimate object. There, there, you poor, confused little test subjects of Velda's. Mark was here for you all. Sort of.

Ah, speak of the devil!

"You and I both know I just got some amazing leave time to myself three days ago-- I was not a happy camper to be in Madrid and suddenly be instructed to come back here. I didn't even have time to scope out anyone."

"Y2K is complete s**t, you know that, right?" Selena's skeptical glance flicked between Stacie and Mark, incredulous. "Also don't 'don't be like that, girl,' at me, mister," Selena warned, irately toying with her lip ring. Mark and C had a way of setting her fuse off, simply by being. They were only good for-- Selena opened her mouth to snark more, but--

Velda had a way of shutting Selena up, simply by existing in the same space as her. The life hunter knew well enough to stay quiet with her dissent when her division leader came by. It was...dangerous to do otherwise. She glanced at Dylan, grimacing,

The fact that Velda was demanding things from possibly one of the flakiest people of all the hunters, hell, on the whole damned planet was depressing and beautiful at the same time.

But C was a big girl-- despite all that she tried to be otherwise-- and that meant she was big enough to dig her way out of her own damned holes.

Lowe didn't really respond, instead he stared at Marsh for a moment before solemnly nodding his head. "Afzal wants me to dig." Lowe tapped the side of his head, almost like he was prodding the voice.

YOU REALLY SHOULD DIG. I'M SERIOUS. DIG DIG DIG DIG.

"Is there...anything you want to do here?" Lowe was honestly content to stare at Marsh. Forever.

Lex's lips curled into an 'innocent' smile. Oh so she didn't like that nickname very much, did she? Well, there was obviously only one solution to that: use a different one. Somewhere in the back of his mind, that blasted hellhound that was his weapon partner snickered. Probably hoping Becca would follow up with those promises of a recap on what training had been like.

"My sincere apologies...sweetling-" A funny sound ruined the moment of snark when something - ::One, you moron! Cody is not a thing...unless pain in the-:: - had him by the neck. Head. Whatever. Lex blocked Mordy out for the moment.

"Oi! Librarian! Still the same, I see." He grinned at the other man. Lex probably should have been bothered at having someone hang off him like so. And really, he would have had it been anyone other than Cody. Cody was just special like that.

::Is that what they are calling it these days?:: Mordy's tone was dry and mildly amused. Stupid hellhound was pretending to be bored.

"And you, my charming and delightful Sir-clings-a-lot, have not gotten any prettier." He managed a mock punch to his buddies gut, since he was right there. Too easy. However that was all he was able to get in before Becca was dragging them both off with her - alright he totally clung on to Cody to make sure he came along too. She'd asked a question, but Lex had only gotten a glimpse of the individual she indicated. And once released and able to see said individual closer, Lex shook his head.

"'fraid not, darlin'." He eyed the person she spoke too with a calculating stare, tilting his head towards his buddy. "What about you? Seen them before?"

The answer caused the small woman's bottom lip to poke out alarmingly, and her normally sweet voice turned icy with disdain, "What would I do with a postcard, Sleigh?" This was obviously a rhetorical question, but before she could begin explaining about vacations, and souvenirs, and what to get your superior, a larger figure had already entered the scene and railroaded over her words with an odd combination of fussing and scathing remarks.

"You could have at least gotten someone else to help with the fire, or put on some damn shoes. You're taking the idiot aspect of idiot savant a bit too far, my dear, really," the man murmured as he began herding Velda away while pulling a pair of shoes from his coat pocket. Glancing over at the gathered hunters, he paused to comment on the state of Stacia's nails, "Very fetching colour my dear, I'm sure those who die from lack of bandages on this mission will truly appreciate the sacrifice."

Velda frowned at him, and then asked, "Are the WCS preparations complete?"

Ah, the wonderful Worst Case Scenario in which pretty much everyone dies. He bent down to pull off one of the ridiculous slippers, and replied, "I've handled retrieval, storage, and destruction preparations myself. Now quit moving your foot, let me get this damn thing on you. Maybe if you're really lucky you'll die of influenza in a few weeks rather than eldritch abominations tonight. Alright now the other."

"Howard?

"What?"

"I don't think you're Howard anymore."

"Do tell."

"I think you're Henry now."

The man who was now Henry sighed, "Wonderful."

He'd only just met Velda when she'd asked him what his new name would be, as Edward Acosta was now very much dead. So when he'd carelessly suggested that she give him a new one, he hadn't quite understood what he was going to put himself through. That had been two years and 48 names ago, and they were now on the H's. The Life leader having decided to go alphabetically.

Normally, Wolf didn't do the whole, bro thing. He looked up as Mark slapped his back, and gave a small little chuckle. He didn't say anything in reply, just clenched his fist with Skoll on it and went to watching the words thrown back and forth.

He was aware Mark was still in his personal space but made no effort change it. The entertainment was much more interesting at the time.