#sienne pelet

[hbxplain]

Find the Word Tag

thanks to @ceph-the-ghost-writer for the tag! this reminded me that sls is actually really fun and i should get back to writing it asd;flkj

i'll be tagging @mallthologist @jezifster @writing-and-trying, @juls-writes, @moonlitinks, @aquil-writes, @unholyspaceprophet

your words are: believe, awful, particular, tug, and lying.

my words were: impulse, main, enhance, table, and temperature, and i'll be finding them in seven lovely sins! I couldn't find "enhance" or "table" so I just used some longer excerpts to make up for it ^.^

Impulse

Vice’s parents have always been the bleeding-heart types; they’d take in all the kids in the world, if they could. They never did, but it’s one thing to want to save up enough money to be absolutely sure you could support a second kid no matter what and then go through the entire adoption process, and another entirely to impulsively tell a teen in active danger that he has a safe place in your home.

Vice waits for some form of jealousy or defensiveness to crop up in her chest… but it doesn’t. She realizes she wouldn’t actually mind having Eli around more often. He’s genuinely her friend, someone she almost trusts. She doesn’t want him to take over her entire life… but she does really like him.

And that is horrible for her mission. How is she supposed to say ‘no’ to keeping one of her first friends and getting her parents back? She wants to tell them everything. What could possibly make her want to go back to Hell, when it doesn’t have her parents and it doesn’t have Eli?

Main

Before she’s anywhere near ready, she finds herself in front of NASA’s main doors. The security guards nod her in, and she takes a deep breath as she steps into the elevator, pressing the button to send her up to the human research and invention floor. She counts her steps as she walks down the hall, and she holds her breath as she takes her lab coat off the hook and shrugs it on, and she finally exhales as she swings open the doors to see-

Sienne.

“We are going to be civil,” Sienne hisses, “because we are at work, and Tigh is not going to sacrifice his dream job because of your sick, twisted self.”

“What?” Tu squeaks, not quite comprehending the situation.

“I know what you are,” Sienne says proudly, hands on her hips. “And I have only one thing to say to you.”

“Uh huh,” Tu says, wondering if Sienne’s the type of person to come into work while high. She tries to stand up on her tiptoes and peer past Sienne, looking for Tigh. “And what’s that?”

Sienne moves to block her view, and a big, shark-like grin crosses her face. “Nice fucking try, Jezebel!”

Table

He begins tinkering with a tiny machine part on the table, explaining as he goes. “This is part of one of my current projects,” he says. “It needed a better eximium sensor—wait, you know what eximium is, right?”

“‘Course I do,” she says, because who doesn’t? “But I like hearing your voice, so tell me anyway.”

Tigh’s blush gets heavier, and he fumbles the screwdriver in his hand for a second. “Uh- Right, sure, yeah! So, eximium is the metal that everyone has in their blood. It contributes to your immune system, but also—for a small bit of the population—it activates in such a way as to give you a very malleable sort of magic, or powers. Thing is, eximium is still a metal, which means that we can manipulate it with the right machines.”

“Which is what you’re doing,” she replies.

“What I’m trying to do,” he corrects her with a little smile.

[hbxplain]

Part 1.1: Pride

3,300 words - Tu Tela, Tigh Barrows, Sienne Pelet, Aeryn Meak

Warnings: fantasy discrimination (not racism or homo/transphobia, though it's adjacent in ways to magic ableism)

i completely forgot to explain in-world lmao but this wip is mostly for my dnd group, where we all know that NASA actually stands for "Neuroanatomical Augmentation in Superelectronic Advancement," it's basically for cyborg shit but it also involves things like the study of eximium (to be explained) which highly effects cyborg shit. look i went overboard a little, i came up with this acronym to replace real-world nasa years ago sksksk

anyway, here's the next chapter of Tu's part!

☼☼☼-

When Tu first sees Tigh, she knows she was meant for Lust, because hot damn does he look pretty.

Then his coworker says “I’m Sienne!” in the most grating combination of a Canadian and southern accent Tu’s ever heard. “Where’re ya from, eh?”

That would be a hard question, if Tu wasn’t incredibly prepared for every single aspect of this assignment. “Moonviewe,” she says proudly.

Sienne frowns, little laugh lines crinkling the dark skin by her mouth. “Really? I used to live there! Didn’t know someone else had moved in after I left, I mean we get so few people…”

Of course Sienne would be one of the only ten people to live on Moonviewe. Fucking of course, she would. Tu watches as the wires sticking out of her two hair buns spark harmlessly. “I only lived there for a bit, but I consider it home,” Tu says politely, her voice sickly sweet.

“Huh,” Sienne says, shrugging carelessly. “That’s more than I ever cared for it!”

“So interesting,” Tu says. Her smile aches. “Anyway, I’m Tu. And you are..?” She leans forward, toward the man somewhat hiding behind Sienne.

“Tigh,” he says finally, stepping out from behind her. He smiles nervously. “Uh, Tigh Barrows. Nice to meet you.”

Tigh does not look like a scientist, let alone a successful one. He has fluffy, curly black hair that looks like it hasn’t been brushed in days, he’s wearing eyeliner that has been accidentally smeared and yet doesn’t quite cover the bags under his eyes, and his lab coat has an entire bottle of Redbull sticking out of the pocket.

He’s cute, though. Korean, dark eyes, genuine smile. Wearing a dark green hoodie and sinfully tight skinny jeans under his lab coat, black studs in his ears, bracelets around his wrists that jangle when he reaches out his hand for Tu to shake. He looks like he started on the goth aesthetic and then got bored halfway through. It kind of works, in a very… dorky kind of way.

“It is nice,” Tu says, somewhat dreamily, as she shakes his hand. Oh, here she goes again—she’s so prone to crushes, it’s insane. Well, but it’s nice, too, isn’t it? She’s not sure she’d give that particular trait away, even if she had the choice.

This time, though, it can’t go anywhere. This mortal will be in Hell by the end of the week; he’ll just be a pretty face passing by.

Works for Tu!

“Uh, so,” Tigh says, clearing his throat. Tu startles a little and drops his hand, but he just smiles. “How long have you been working here at NASA?”

“Oh, I’m a new hire,” Tu says brightly.

“A new-” Tigh’s smile turns strained. “Sorry, what?”

“What do you mean, a new hire!?” Sienne shrieks. “It took us years to get promoted to this department!”

“Seven years, precisely,” Tigh mumbles, his gaze fixed on the floor somewhere behind Tu. He doesn’t seem entirely there, his attention taken by the idea of Tu getting so far so fast. Oh, this assignment will be easy.

“Wow, such a long time!” Tu says. She uses her demon powers—which appear spectacularly similar to the broad magic a lucky few mortals possess—to make herself a simple blue chair to lounge on. “I didn’t even get an interview, weirdly.”

Tigh’s face looks tense, like he can’t decide whether to be awed, or angry, or hurt. Sienne makes the decision for him and scowls. “Oh. So you weren’t hired for your skills, you were hired for your magic,” she says dryly, unimpressed.

“Then again,” Tigh says weakly, trying to be optimistic, “it would be nice to have someone with magic around so our research could go more smoothly. I mean, if Tu’s willing, we could get blood samples and eximium scans from her instead of having to ask the supervisor for volunteers.” He looks up at Tu again, seeming to grow more excited as he speaks. “Wait, yeah, this could be great!”

Sienne grabs his shoulders, spinning him around to face her. “We worked up from interns, Tigh, and now she’s just barging in-”

“And she’s here now,” Tigh says pointedly, eyes flicking over to Tu for a second, “so there’s no point in making her feel bad for something she can’t help.”

Sienne is quiet for a moment. Then she huffs and shrugs. “Fine! Whatever you say, maverick.”

Tu freezes.

“I’m sorry, what was that?” she asks quietly.

“Maverick,” Sienne says, turning back to her with a broad smile. She doesn’t look teasing, or mean—just talking. “Blank slate, traddie, plastic, you get the gist. People without powers.”

“That’s a slur,” Tu says angrily, her blood boiling as she moves to her feet and takes a step closer to Sienne.

“Can it really be a slur when traditional people are the majority? You’re one of the five percent, sweetcheeks! Blank slate over here isn’t just the tradition or whatever, he’s the default!”

Tu’s arm shoots out to grab the lapels of Sienne’s lab coat and yank her closer. “Stop. Fucking. Calling him that.”

Tigh makes a startled noise and squeezes himself in between them, pulling Tu’s hands off Sienne’s coat and pushing Sienne away. “Hey, hey, it’s fine! Look, she’s traditional too—at least, she is now—and she’s kind of right—I mean, what does it matter?” He laughs anxiously, eyes flicking between the two girls. “I don’t mind, really, not from her.”

Tu narrows her eyes at Sienne, but then she crosses her arms and looks away. “You shouldn’t let her treat you like that,” she grumbles, but she doesn’t press.

(She remembers her mother, back from when she was alive. She remembers how her mother would praise her for continuing the family legacy of having magic, how her mother would force her into training sessions and interviews and PR fronts, how her mother would condemn all the crowds of ‘normal’ people with their lack of powers that made them so useless, how her mother would scream at her and put her into horribles situations and tell her how she’s not good enough and-)

(And, well, Hell is a relief compared to that.)

“Right,” Tigh says, grateful for the way out. “Well, compromise, right? Don’t say that kind of shit around Tu, Sienne. And Tu, don’t, uh… bodily attack your coworkers. Please.”

Tu figures this is not the kind of first impression she was intended to make. But, then again, maybe it’ll convince Tigh that he’s more deserving of the upcoming promotion than she is…? Either way, this certainly isn’t going to plan, and it makes Tu a little nervous. She nods her agreement to Tigh and tries to seamlessly move to one of the workstations, ending the conversation, and Tigh and Sienne let her. God, what a disaster.

Looking over the workstation, though, she finds she has absolutely no idea what to do. There are vials of variously-colored liquids, tiny machines she’s never even seen before, jars of powdered metal that might be the eximium that gives mortals magic. What is she supposed to do with any of us? She doesn’t even know how to pretend to be busy here.

So she decides to get to work on a second impression. She scans the room, feels a stab of gratefulness that Sienne and Tigh are now well separated, and then sidles up next to Tigh. “Hey,” she says quietly, almost a whisper. She’d rather Sienne not hear her. “I’m a little confused… but you seem to know what you’re doing. Could you help me out?”

“Sure,” Tigh says, seeming a bit confused himself but willing nonetheless. “What do you need help with?”

Tu laughs nervously. “Um… everything?”

“What do you mean? Like, is there a specific thing you’re confused about or-”

“All of it. Just, all of it. Maybe you could show me what to do…?”

Okay, fine. So maybe she’s flirting a little bit. But what’s the harm in that? Hell, this could help a lot. If she gets real close to him, praises him, compliments him, tells him he’s the best guy she’s ever known, that’ll definitely boost his pride! And so what if Tu gets something out of it as well? That’s just an unintended benefit.

“I mean… I guess?” Tigh moves over, allowing Tu to stand beside him. He sounds uncomfortable, but when Tu glances up at him out of the corner of her eye, he’s smiling with a light dusting of pink across his high cheekbones. Oh, she’s in.

He begins tinkering with a tiny machine part on the table, explaining as he goes. “This is part of one of my current projects,” he says. “It needed a better eximium sensor—wait, you know what eximium is, right?”

“‘Course I do,” she says, because who doesn’t? “But I like hearing your voice, so tell me anyway.”

Tigh’s blush gets heavier, and he fumbles the screwdriver in his hand for a second. “Uh- Right, sure, yeah! So, eximium is the metal that everyone has in their blood. It contributes to your immune system, but also—for a small bit of the population—it activates in such a way as to give you a very malleable sort of magic, or powers. Thing is, eximium is still a metal, which means that we can manipulate it with the right machines.”

“Which is what you’re doing,” she replies.

“What I’m trying to do,” he corrects her with a little smile. “It’s… not going so great. But, I mean, I’m making progress!”

“Tell me more about it?” she asks, leaning against the table.

He looks away, grinning. “You have to work at least a little bit,” he says teasingly.

“Well, if you insist,” Tu replies. She picks up a tiny screwdriver and starts poking at a motherboard.

“Wha- Stop, what are you doing?” Tigh asks through peels of laughter, and Tu pauses.

“I- I dunno? I’m copying you!”

“Why?” Tigh asks, seeming even more amused.

“I don’t know! I just… I wasn’t really given a goal here!”

Tigh shakes his head in a way that Tu might call fond, if they’d known each other for a little bit longer. “Okay,” he says, putting his work down to turn his full attention to her. “Tell me about your magic.”

“Oh.” She tries to reign in her surprise and reply normally. “Uh… It’s transmutation, mostly. My favored magic turns air into solid air, in basically any shape. I can use it to ‘fly,’ to shield myself, to-”

“Create things?”

“Yeah, why?”

Tigh pushes Tu’s motherboard and tiny screwdriver further onto the table, clearing a space in front of her. “How intricate can you get?”

“Very,” Tu brags with a little smirk. She waves her hand, and a perfect replica of the motherboard appears on the table, made of light blue solid air.

“Amazing,” Tigh whispers, breathing out in awe. “Holy shit, Tu. Okay, so- Maybe you can try to create something with your solid air, instead of with the parts we have lying around?”

“Huh,” Tu says. She’s used to being told to use her magic before anything else, but this feels… different? This feels like seeking out her talents to make things easier on her rather than forcing her to be the best she can be with magic. It still stings a little, but… she’s willing to hear him out. “What do I create, then? Anything?”

“They didn’t tell you what your job was, apparently,” Tigh says, almost in a grumble. “Which means you’re free to go buckwild. Who’s gonna stop you? The supervisors who didn’t even give you a lick of guidance?” He shrugs. “Might as well take advantage of it until they catch on. Just make something cool.”

“Something cool,” Tu echoes, considering. “Hmm… okay. I will.”

Tigh doesn’t ask her to go back to an empty workstation. He doesn’t try to shoo her away. They work side by side, and when Tigh has to move to a different area for parts or tools or data, she moves with him. He smiles down at his work every time.

Whenever Sienne bumps into them or joins them at a table, she is infuriatingly friendly. She jokes with Tu (Tu does not joke back), she smiles at Tu, hell, she even flirts with Tu a couple times! And she just won’t stop. Tigh doesn’t seem to think this is anything out of the ordinary, so maybe she’s like that with everyone? But that doesn’t make it any less annoying, considering Tu kind of hates her more every time she opens her mouth.

“Hey,” Tu says when the work day is almost over—it’s amazing how fast it flew by. She thought this part would be really boring, but it wasn’t. Not at all. “I moved here for the job… I don’t suppose you could show me around town? Maybe take me out for coffee?”

Tigh lights up, and Tu can’t help but grin. “Oh, hell yeah! We can go to CC Brews, my friends co-own the place,” Tigh says brightly.

“Sounds perf-”

“Sienne can come too!”

Tu’s eyes twitches.

“Ohhh,” she says, her smile feeling sharp. “Cool. That sounds so great.”

Tigh doesn’t notice a damn thing wrong, apparently, because he just nods with that big smile on his face as he packs up his things. “You wanna walk there now? It’s not too far from the NASA complex.”

“Sure,” Tu says, resigning herself to her fate. “Why not.”

☼☼☼-

Sienne leads most of the conversation herself for the entire walk to the coffee shop, which is at the very top of Crown Street, where it intersects with Eximiott Plaza. Tigh tries to include Tu whenever he can, but Sienne seems intent on making her as uncomfortable as possible. Tu wishes she was a Lust demon just so it would hurt even more when she rejected Sienne.

(Is she pretty? Yes. Fine, yes. Is she annoying? Oh god yes. Tu thinks there’s no recovering from that level of obnoxiousness.)

When they finally reach CC Brews, though, the look on Tigh’s face is almost worth it. He looks like he’s coming home.

(Not that Tu would know the feeling. How should she know what home is meant to feel like when she’s only ever been judged by her glory?)

“Tigh!” shouts a cheery man’s voice, and then a short, plump man with bright red hair and a face full of freckles bursts through the glass doors of the shop. He waves ecstatically at Tigh and then runs to meet him, throwing his arms around the scientist and squeezing him tightly.

Tigh laughs, hugging him back with a pleased look on his face. “Hey, Aeryn. Rough day?”

“No, but Nora’s busy and you haven’t visited in days,” the guy pouts. Damn, he’s cute too. Every day Tu gets closer to applying for Lust. …Not really. “I’m lonely.”

“Well, good news,” Tigh says, pulling away. “I’m here, and I bought friends!”

“Come on in then!” Aeryn says, gesturing for Tu and Sienne to follow him inside. He seats them at a table near the counter, and pats Sienne on the shoulder with one hand while he digs a notebook out of his pocket with the other. “Nice to see you again, Sienne. And you are…?”

“Tu,” Tu replies. She winks. “Very nice meeting you too.”

Aeryn giggles and takes their orders, but Tu notices that Tigh looks a bit… tense? Once Aeryn leaves, she focuses on Tigh and tries to send thoughts into his mind—a demon power she rarely needs to use, but she did say she’d do her best on this assignment. She’d better use her strongest techniques.

You’re so much better than Aeryn, Tu blasts into Tigh’s head, careful to make it sound like his own voice. Why is she flirting with him?

Tigh furrows his eyebrows. Sienne looks between him and Tu in confusion, but then Tigh shakes his head and looks up, giving Tu a slightly strained smile. “Uh, do you- would you want Aeryn’s number?”

“Oh,” Tu says, frowning. Well, that… didn’t go as planned. “No thanks. I’d rather hang out with you at the moment.”

It’s not the end of the world. She just wasn’t trying hard enough; she didn’t think it’d be a hard sell. Next time, she’ll put more weight into it!

“So!” she says loudly, ready to dive back into normal conversation. “Tell me more about this science shit, pretty boy.”

Tigh blushes. “I- There’s not much to tell,” he stammers. “I’m sure you remember the basics from wherever you went to college for eximium and augmentation stuff.”

“Oh, but we’re going way beyond the basics,” Sienne boasts, leaning back on her chair with her hands on her hips. “I’m working on nanotech for surgeries, and Tigh over here is doing finishing touches on a metal-clearer.”

“A what?” Tu asks, raising an eyebrow.

“It’s actually called a Magic Rake,” Tigh butts in uncertainly.

“And it’s brilliant!” Sienne trills.

Tigh blushes, taking a quick moment to glare at Sienne. “I’m- Look, I’m still working out the kinks,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck and looking away. “But I’m getting closer! At least it does the job now, even if it’s not always that reliable.”

“Oh, I’m sure it’s amazing work,” Tu says, trying to urge him on. “Like Sienne said. Brilliant.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t say that,” Tigh laughs.

Tu opens her mouth to tell him otherwise, but then Aeryn appears with their drinks. He burned her espresso on purpose, just like she requested, and she greedily gulps it down before he can even set down the second cup she asked for. Aeryn laughs good-naturedly, and Tu grins up at him.

“Tired?” he asks.

“Always,” Tu replies, and Tigh laughs in agreement—Aeryn scrounged up an entire Redbull from god knows where to bring to Tigh—and the conversation moves from there. Tu never has a chance to move it back to Tigh’s supposed aptitude for eximium science.

…She has a good time though. She has a really good time. She goes back to her temporary apartment afterward, and for a moment, she forgets to think about the assignment at all. She just thinks about how damn nice it is that Tigh must thinks she’s the world’s biggest disaster when it comes to NASA’s science, and yet he still seems to like her. She knew fuck-all about the job she’s supposed to be good at, she didn’t show off the magnitude of her magic, by all means she came off as completely useless-

And he likes her anyway.

Tu shakes the thought from her head. Wow, she met a person who wasn’t a dick. It’s not that new, not that shiny and special; she has friends in Pride who like her well enough, she has Izzy who couldn’t care less about her magic or her Tempting statistics. Still, Izzy has to stay in the Circle of Sloth most of time, so they don’t get to visit each other that often, and all of Tu’s friends in Pride are more of work friends than anyone else.

Tigh has friends who feel like a family, who he can tease and joke with and love without fear. And he accepted her into that group without thinking twice.

It doesn’t matter, Tu tells herself again. It’ll just make the job a bit more… enjoyable? Kind?

She’ll get through it. She’ll win, she’ll be the best damn demon Miss Lane has ever seen, she’ll solve this cold case in a couple of weeks, max!

She marks a date on her calendar, three weeks from now on the 24th of May. Bam. By then, she’ll be ready to return to Miss Lane with the good news.

☼☼☼-

taglist: @wildswrites, @ceph-the-writing-spook