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Post by demikara on Oct 17, 2019 19:21:47 GMT -6
"It's alright. I'm going to give it a try." she offered. "It may end up being too mundane for me." She wanted to prepare him just in case it was. Just in case the job didn't work out, she couldn't stand driving the same route every single day. But it was a safer job and she had promised him to try and find one at least. It was just a matter of discovering what job worked best for her that wasn't Gambit's.
She had a feeling there were going to be growing pains. She would work through them as best she could, but she really did want a safer job. Being shot at work wasn't a picnic and she didn't want the fights that would break out if she even mentioned going back. She didn't want to go back, except maybe for a drink. She wasn't in her twenties any more and it had taken a long time to heal. She didn't want to put up with that again.
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Post by Ylanne on Oct 17, 2019 19:31:47 GMT -6
"I have a sinking feeling it could turn out that way, yeah," Ahmad admitted, moving about the kitchen in what seemed not just practiced but nearly effortless motions. He'd grown up sometimes with couscous but when he made it himself now as an adult, it was never the same aroma or flavor as in his memories. Good, but not sumptuous. He paused to grab a glass from one of the cabinets, rinsing it quickly then filling it with a Turkish vişne nectar that he gulped down, then set the empty glass on the counter, eyeing the soaking grains. "How'd you even hear about this job anyway? I thought, well, I guess I assumed really. That you'd be looking for security again. No weapons at work, now." He chuckled a little at that, still amazed and kind of impressed that Aerilyn had (at least temporarily) agreed to a job where she wouldn't be open carrying an enormous rifle every day.
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Post by demikara on Oct 18, 2019 7:47:31 GMT -6
"I may go back to security. Not carrying around my rifle still feels weird." she had almost gotten used to it, when she was too injured to carry it, but it was still rather like a security blanket for her and she knew it. Aerilyn shrugged. "Arianne suggested it as an option. They're always hiring because there's huge turnover." There was turnover in basically every job in Wing City, especially the public facing ones, or the ones who may have to deal with more rowdy people. "She also suggested school teacher though, so I suppose we'll see what to make of the suggestion." She wasn't sure yet. It had potential, if the route ever got exciting, but it also had potential to be dead boring.
She still couldn't even begin to imagine herself as a school teacher. That would have been an interesting position, but it wasn't one she was interested in at all. Aerilyn watched him cook and stayed out of his way for the most part, knowing better than to try and actually help in the kitchen. Her specialty was a cheese sandwich. She could even reliably cut the crusts off, if asked. Anything more complicated than that was beyond her.
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Post by Ylanne on Oct 18, 2019 8:45:19 GMT -6
Ahmad sighed, leaning against the counter to face Aerilyn. The couscous grains would need to soak for a bit, though he could try to hurry up the process a bit. He just wasn't sure he wanted to risk ruining the end product. "Why... I. Bus driving and clandestine operations are definitely extremely different kinds of work. That's kind of odd she'd suggest those two options, but I guess she has reasons?" He tried to think what the connection could be, but after a few seconds of searching, he gave up. One seemed a monotonous, blue-collar job requiring specific mechanical skills, another a terrifyingly exciting and usually hyper-masculinized position requiring the skills necessary for subterfuge and deception, and the last an overly feminized and nurturing job straddling that space between professional and labor and would ask for yet a different set of interpersonal skills, and they didn't seem at all alike, at least not to him. Ahmad reached back into the fridge to pour more of the vişne suyu into his glass, this time drinking more slowly and thoughtfully. "Well, whatever you end up deciding you want to do. It's your choice, I guess. Just... Please don't shoot a passenger on the bus if they decide to act up. That... would definitely not end well." He knew it was only a matter of time before Aerilyn would eventually decide she needed to be armed, even if it was only a small concealed pistol. As much as he hated to think about it too much, and what that might mean in a place like Wing City, notorious for its violence and chaos. "And if you end up teaching, probably maybe don't bring a gun to school. That seems like an incredibly bad idea. Even the bus is probably a safer bet for a concealed gun, than, anywhere with kids. I mean, not that I think you would. I'm just thinking out loud." He didn't want to imagine the thought of a kid accidentally getting a hold of a firearm, not knowing how to safely handle it, and then... Ahmad shuddered involuntarily.
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Post by demikara on Oct 18, 2019 12:35:51 GMT -6
Aerilyn poured herself some vişne suyu as well and smiled to him, uncertain. "I think she was just suggesting possibilities. I mentioned wanting something a bit safer." She did want a safer job than Gambit's. But she didn't want to be bored either and finding that balance was going to be difficult. The aeromancer considered how to handle the situation. "I'm giving safer a try though. So far it's alright." Not great, not what she wanted to do, if she was honest, but the pay was okay and she was capable of doing the work. It wasn't too rowdy, which was a change, but it wasn't like she would have had too many more years at Gambit's anyway. It was probably time to settle into something else now.
"I'll probably end up a security guard, if I'm honest. It's...it'll still be boring, in comparison, but I was starting to not keep up with the patrons anymore, anyway. I guess me getting hurt was inevitable."
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Post by Ylanne on Oct 18, 2019 13:09:08 GMT -6
"But... I mean, it wasn't your fault." Ahmad set a pot on the side of the sink, filling it with water, then moving to set it atop the stove. "The asshole bounty hunter. He's the one that shot you. And you're the one who said he had terrible fucking aim or something because he was aiming at this other guy in there, the one with the bounty out for 'em, and somehow still managed to miss at close range. Not that I ever liked it, worrying you were going to be dead at work, but, it wasn't like it was your fault someone else shot you. He was the asshole in that situation." The boiling water would take some time, now, but Ahmad was used to this process. The stove was older but steady and reliable, and they hadn't prioritized trying to renovate the kitchen or update any of the appliances in it. Maybe one day. He'd burned through their rainy day fund on bail, and while Ifill, the lawyer, had told him he'd get it back as long as he showed up to court, that wouldn't be until the end of the term of the suspended sentence as he'd learned on his last court date. Except then he'd found out that the bondsman would actually be keeping the returned money as their fee. So it didn't really matter. They'd have to start over. "Do you want to be a security guard, or a bus driver? It doesn't sound like you're really enthusiastic or excited about either of those things..."
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Post by demikara on Oct 18, 2019 13:57:53 GMT -6
"I liked being a bouncer. I liked my work." she admitted. "I got to help people and protect them and deal with assholes how I wanted to deal with them." They had had full discretion. The bar would stand behind them 100 percent. Aerilyn gave him an unhappy smile. "It's different." she admitted. "It's very different and I don't know if its the sort of different I can handle." She missed Gambit's, even if she was hurt there. It was the asshole bounty hunter, like he had said.
"But I also don't know what else I'm cut out for. I was a soldier before I was a bouncer. Those are the only two jobs I've ever had." She had never explored other possibilities. And now that she had the chance too, she wasn't certain where to even begin.
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Post by Ylanne on Oct 18, 2019 14:17:10 GMT -6
"Well, how'd that happen? Did you enlist, or were you recruited, or ... ?" Ahmad realized suddenly that he'd never really asked that. He knew so much of Aerilyn's life narrative - especially what had happened in the war, the traumas she'd endured that had made it so hard for her for so long even to hear Ahmad speaking in his mother tongue - but he'd never really learned exactly how she'd gotten there in the first place. What she'd been doing before she met the Rayburn and Jones whose names she'd taken for her own in place of another, that he'd also never dared ask what it was. "I mean, if you don't want to... If you're rather not talk about it, yeah, I, I understand." He knew she was not one for conventions or expectations, never one for following rules. The grains had soaked long enough, he decided, and he tossed them into the pot, where the water had now come to a rolling boil, adding other ingredients with deft, practiced movements, without stopping to measure. His eye was good enough. He'd learned that from many women in his life, one after another, from childhood to adulthood, who'd all had calloused hands from years of work, sharp tongues, and yet a tenderness to the way they corrected his mistakes until he'd been able to cook almost as well as any of them.
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Post by demikara on Oct 18, 2019 14:28:43 GMT -6
"I enlisted." She admitted. "I was from a seshan ghetto." She explained. "They're...well, they're a type of Scatterran, but a super small minority. We're all terran sized and not scatterran sized, so we blend in well. My dad was born off Terra. He was also an asshole. I had magic, so I was the devil. That kind of asshole. Not that he ever told me that I had magic. And when you grow up not using it, you just...don't notice." She shrugged. "I didn't notice anything off until I was already over there." It had never come up, what she was saying. Maybe it should have. "You already know I barely made it out of high school. The military was the only option, as far as I could tell."
So she had gone with that. "I was in a combat unit. Infantry. Scatterrans are made for war, you know. Even the seshans. My unit became my family. When...when the attack happened, and my magic saved me, and only me, I took their names. Better than my own." She had never been attached to her name, and it had been a way to remember her unit.
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Post by Ylanne on Oct 18, 2019 15:07:22 GMT -6
Ahmad stirred in the ingredients, the cinnamon and warm garlic aromas gradually filling the kitchen. There hadn't been enough light, they'd thought, from the windows, so they hadn't bothered hanging up curtains in the room, the better to maximize how much sun could stream inside. His childhood house, when he was a small boy, had had windows on three sides of the kitchen and living room together, warming the carpets and his face together. His college dorm had been quite the opposite, with only one small window, facing a shaded direction, never receiving any direct sunlight. His roommate had called it "the dungeon." Fitting, since it was in the basement. He didn't think he'd ever see the inside of an army barracks. The closest he'd gotten was during training for the Bureau. "Well." What did you even say to that? "I'm really glad you're here now. And I guess the army was... better than the streets. And maybe better than a gang or something."
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Post by demikara on Oct 18, 2019 15:11:34 GMT -6
"It was an out." She admitted. "But I wouldn't have gotten to meet you if I hadn't of taken it. so I think it worked out." She gave him a huge from behind and peered around him. It smelled so good already. "Besides, I never fit in the ghetto anyway. Too Terran for them." She had dove into the dominant culture as a child and quickly abandoned all that she could of her childhood culture. "They're kind of regressive about women in the kitchen anyway. And given we've seen what happens when I am in the kitchen..."
Well, she definitely wouldn't make a good traditional wife for a Seshan man. She smiled and held him close. Life was better with them together. She didn't like thinking of her past. "Besides. That was ages ago."
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Post by Ylanne on Oct 18, 2019 15:41:32 GMT -6
"Yeah, a lot of what's happened has been ages ago," said Ahmad, laughing a little. It felt good to do that. He remembered when he'd been so caught up in himself, that first time they'd met each other after a chance collision in public, all those years ago. How specifically polite and courteous he'd been, just like the old woman had asked him to do when out in public on Bureau affairs, and then how deeply offended and flushed he'd gotten when Aerilyn had reacted, in panic, at the sound of his mother tongue. He could speak more freely now. Aerilyn didn't think he was some pretentious snot, or else a cultureless slob. "We're ... Well, we're kind of fucked lately, I guess, but less fucked than either or both of us have been before. And I'm OK with that. Not sure it was all worth the costs we've gone through, including the, ah, literal ones, but... I like having you around. And I like the house we live in. It's ours. As weird and unconventional as we are." With two gaming rooms and a gun room - not a gun closet, an entire gun room. Their house was quite unlike the others of people he knew from work, from game, from school. And it was far from where he'd grown up - in decor, in function, and in location. He was glad for that.
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Post by demikara on Oct 18, 2019 15:47:52 GMT -6
"I like having you around too." She admitted, almost shyly. "And I like our house and I like your family, and Arianne, who I'm claiming." He could share. Specifically, he could share Arianne. She still wasn't sure about his mom sometimes, but the older woman was kind to her and was interesting. What more could she want for a mother-in-law? she had heard horror stories. "We've had it pretty peaceful since the last invasion. It's been nice. I guess it was time for things to be shaken up though." It was Terra. It would get boring if things didn't get shaken up every now and then.
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Post by Ylanne on Oct 18, 2019 15:56:23 GMT -6
"Yes, well, I guess some people will be a lot more fucked out of this than others." Ahmad stirred the pot, watching the grains absorb the water and spices and everything else, growing, until they became fluffier and started to look like something you might actually eat. "There's all of them who will go to prison now. Though I'm honestly really surprised about Malijin. I kind of doubt it's going to stick with him. Then again, that's what people have been saying for ages about the Director, and she's probably going to prison now, so, there's that. And then there's all the people whose lives were destroyed through whatever it was she did. And the rest of them. They're... They're going to have to relive it all. Nonstop news coverage. The trials. It's going to be a fucking circus with like twelve live acts all at once. And me, well, I guess I should count my lucky stars. Because that's probably what it is, when I think about it - really contemplate." He inhaled a moment, leaning slightly over the pot on the stove, hands resting on the edge of it, then turned back to face Aerilyn. His cup was nearly empty of the vişne suyu now. "But yeah. I'm glad we've got each other, and I guess my mom and I can kind of sort of make up for the gap from where... yeah. I mean, you know Khaula bint Abdalkarim is also a very unconventional woman. She's about a thousand times better of a cook than I'll ever be, and also, did I ever tell you that she's won sharpshooting tournaments five years in a row?" He felt like Aerilyn and his mother would probably bond much more closely if they ever ended up at a firing range together, since they both seemed to be practically in love with their guns and found them comforting, which was precisely why he assiduously avoided such places as he did not.
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Post by demikara on Oct 20, 2019 18:20:53 GMT -6
"You did not." She admitted and smiled. She was never certain how his mother felt about her. She wasn't exactly the sort of person you pictured married to Ahmad, and knew that all too well. Aerilyn grinned. "We'll have to have a competition. Though I think deciding on the type of gun may be the hard part." Aerilyn liked her heavy hitters but knew all too well that not everyone could handle her beloved rail gun. It also didn't lend itself to competitions well. One of the more Terran guns would probably be used.
"And you're an amazing cook. I like your food more." She was also thoroughly biased, but her vote still counted. She smiled and kissed his cheek. "So there."
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