semi-closed

[hackitude]

WHO: Skye, Lydia Martin (& you, if you would like to run into Skye shopping??)
WHERE: A mall in central Heropa.
WHEN: Backdated to uh... 5/28.
WHAT: GIRLDATE.
WARNINGS: None.


[Skye feels a little bit weird, agreeing to meet up with a girl obviously several years her junior-- still in high school, even-- to go clothes shopping like buddies. Two years ago it mightn't have been so bad, but at 24... yeah, it's a little weird, no matter how intelligent or mature Lydia might be. But for all that, she likes Lydia-- or her first impression of Lydia, anyway. She was completely different in personality to Skye, but... she got Skye. They operated on similar wavelengths. Or something.

In any case, Skye needs friends. It's not something she ever dwelt on much before-- as a child and a teenager she always changed schools so often, she eventually stopped trying to make friends. It was harder to have something and then lose it, she figured. Being a self-imposed loner was easier. She had the internet. Then as a young adult, she'd been too homeless, too jobless and too busy trying to infiltrate a government organisation to make any lasting acquaintances aside from her ex-boyfriend.

It's only after having joined SHIELD that she felt like she really had a family. People she could depend on. And only now, having been kidnapped to this new place and having to start over, does she suddenly and keenly feel that loss for the first time in her life. She supposes she could go back to the way of the loner, but... Skye is really a social person at heart. Despite her occasional cynicism born of seeing everything the internet has to offer, Skye likes people. SHIELD made her realise that. And now that she understands that much... she knows she can't really go back to living like she did before. Not really, not happily. So. Attempts at friendship it is.

Skye leans casually against a wall where she and Lydia had planned to meet, slightly early, mulling these thoughts over. She hadn't changed since they spoke on video an hour ago-- still dressed in a womens' fitted red flannel shirt, skinny jeans and a pair of converse. As usual she wears her hair out, and she tucks some of it falling into her face behind one ear absently, before checking the time on her wristwatch. Still early. Feeling a little foolish, she gets out her communicator and starts to play Snake while she waits.]

Comments

[hackitude]

Wow, try to dial it back on the condescending tones there. I spent a few years in Texas. I can handle the heat.

[Skye casts her eye around the racks for something else to help her out. Something that will fit Lydia's criteria but also her own, so she can get out of this whole strapless top debacle. She spots something more her speed and grabs it off the rack in a bit of a mad dash: a loose-fitting racerback tank top with red and white stripes. Practical, comfortable, not too flashy and not too plain. Actually, it wouldn't have been out of place in Allison's wardrobe either.]

How about this one? Better, right? [PLEASE SAY YES.]

[immuno]

[ lydia’s hand falls on the hanger to take the shirt from skye. her free hand reaches down to lift the base of the shirt, clutching the fabric in a strangely reverent way. everything about allison feels acute, like it’s in high definition or over-sharpened in her memory. like she’s afraid that one by one, each detail is going to get lost, so her brain feels compelled to rewire everything back there.

when she remembers that skye is still waiting for an answer, her gaze lifts, eyes slightly bugged, and she nods, handing it back with something of a shove. ]

Sure. [ she blinks, softening slightly as she realizes how sharply that came out. ] Yes, it’s better.

[hackitude]

Uh... thanks. [Skye pauses then, wondering whether or not to say anything...]

... Are you okay? I didn't just like-- commit a major fashion atrocity and you're just being too polite to tell me, did I?

[immuno]

The most polite thing I could do if you were committing a fashion atrocity would be to tell you. [ lydia reasons. she's honest, ok. sometimes to a fault. ] And I'm fine. [ she turns away, squashing down the lingering discomfort. ] I want to look at shoes.

[hackitude]

I can respect that. [Skye nods kind of awkwardly, because that seems to be a running pattern of people in her life recently. Overly blunt people, that is.]

Okay. Shoes! Yes, great, I love shoes. [She hates shoes. Oh, she likes LOOKING at them, sure. They're cute! But actually trying them on? Everything has to fit just right and none of them are ever comfortable. And she has a sneaking suspicion that Lydia isn't the ballet flats and sneakers kind of girl.]

Iiiiiiii think I saw a really cute shoe shop just down the way. Like two shops over.

[They probably have shoes in this boutique, but Skye wants to get away from whatever it is that made Lydia act weirdly all of a sudden. She puts the tank top back on the rack equally as hurriedly as she lifted it off and makes a beeline out of the store, hoping Lydia will follow. There is indeed a specialised shoe store two spaces over. However, the shop across the way is an electronics store. Skye pauses for a moment out in the mall thoroughfare, looking from the store opposite to the store with shoes. It would be so great if she could inspect more of this world's tech...

No, gotta stay focused. Lydia extended an invitation for one thing, and it would be rude to derail that. She turns back around to the shoe store.]

[immuno]

[ lydia’s head whips around suddenly as skye makes her hasty escape from the store. never before has she been the one left scrambling to catch up. leaving people to follow in a wake is her job! she pulls herself away from the racks and hurries after skye, catching up in time to see her making googly eyes at the electronics just before she points out the shoe store.

for a moment longer, lydia considers her, deciding what to make of that. finally, with one last once over, she turns away from skye and heads into the shoe store. if she doesn’t want to say anything, that’s her business. ]

You should have gotten that shirt.

[hackitude]

I'll go back for it if I really want it.

[Which is, in fact, true: Skye's hasn't exactly had an excess of money in her life before joining up with SHIELD, so it was a strategy she'd developed to stop herself from impulse buying things she couldn't afford. Often times she'd find that after she walked away from a store, she couldn't be bothered going back to get the item she'd so wanted to buy after all. Ergo, she couldn't have wanted or needed it all that much, ergo, no need to waste money.

Skye looks at the display of shoes in the window from outside the store. True to the fashion of this world, most of them are charmingly retro.]

Oooh. Those are cute.

[Skye points to a pair of white and mint green shoes with a t-strap and a short kitten heel and an oxford-shoe-like design. It's sort of a halfway compromise between what she's picked up of Lydia's style and her own.]

Shame I only look like the newly-risen dead in mint green.

[immuno]

[ lydia tilts her head in consideration of the shoes, then takes skye's wrist to consider her skin tone. ]

Something in peach, though. [ (she shies away from calling it pink, even though pink would look fine too—she has a feeling skye would be instinctively averse.) her eyes skim the row of boxes beneath the shoe, stepping forward to dig through them and read color labels. ]