Los Angeles, California [CVU Location]

@j_the_toymaker:

"The city tells me I want a hamburger," Sitri answered. "Which is about the only normal thing it's told me lately. If you don't mind, that is," she added, with genuine care. She'd worked enough waitressing jobs to know how much onelast customer, right before close could be detested. "If you'd rather close up, I'll hang around a bit and maybe take you out somewhere you can get something to eat that isn't a hamburger." She didn't specify what, exactly. The city had plenty of options, after all... but Sitri had a feeling that the primal hunger she'd felt earlier didn't really have much to do with finding the best pho.

"And if burger flipping's a crime, it's out of my jurisdiction. I'm more on the murder-and-mayhem circuit, not the 'this quarter-pounder is half an ounce short' circuit. There's probably someone who gets off on that, though. Like the Hamburglar." She paused, considering this train of thought. "Sorry. I probably watched too many commercials as a kid. So, what do you do when you're not flipping burglars?"

@nobody:

A hat dropped over her head to big for her own it'd dropped past her eyes. The darkness was somehow comforting. Lack of sight actually helped chase away the devils on the outskirts of her sight some. Familiar scents and a loose strand of hair lost in the hat made a nose twitch. An opening was created and for what was the first time Rana found herself pulled into a moment as opposed to her own acts of greed. She didn't really have the words or expressions to convey how much that meant, her feelings felt returned on a level she didn't know she wanted as much as she did. Her mind started to run rampant with demons trying to twist it against her and her own thought of just begging for it to not end. Of course it did though and behind reddening cheeks and duel colored eyes voices laughed at her.

"Good trick" she remarked with probably the warmest smile she'd managed sense a particular bout with a time siphon. "Perfect trick as that is I'm sure you learned more. Please show off."

@iridum:

Those red-tinted cheeks of hers, always as adorable as the first time, were the sole signal he needed to acknowledge he did something correctly. A long wait until their lips joined once again, apparently even more so to her, as he could feel the intensity with which she responded. She missed it probably more than he did, which had him equally bothered by taking far too long and content for being quintessential to at least one person. "Glad you liked it, that was the one I was mostly unsure about." He smiled joyfully, Rana's simple presence enough to trigger this odd palpitations within his heart. Was that what it felt like to be reunited with the one you loved after so long?

"Another trick, another trick, another trick..." He mused, index finger scratching his chin. Pretending to not notice, Drake cautiously crafted colorful, elemental orbs scattered throughout the room behind Rana, pillars of light coming from the ground and perfectly halting as soon as they touched the ceiling, constructs of mythical creatures surrounding the altar-like creation Drake erected within seconds. The orbs lessened in size, filling the room with lights of different hues. "Oh, I got it." Nobody snapped his fingers, and as soon as he did he vanished from sight, an incredibly strong current buffeting the tophat off of Rana's head, its intention was having her look behind her, to this man-made wonder. At the center of it all, a distinct glow shone from inside Drake's headwear, now upside down in the floor.

Poof! Smoke scattered throughout the room as her boyfriend reappeared from inside his own hat, a rather mysterious figure surging right behind his back, its slender fingers cautiously raising the hat and placing it atop its insect-like head, a crimson robe complementing its obsidian skin as a thunderous roar echoed inside Rana's head. "Would this suffice as a trick?"

@demonboundsitri:

"I wouldn't've offered if I minded," he pointed out, before turning the grill the rest of the way up. "Though if the offer stands after you eat, I wouldn't mind getting a bite." He could eat human food, after all. He did need that, too. But for the deeper hunger... well. Low-lifes usually did the trick for that.

He listened half-amused to her analysis, the other half still on edge about why exactly she was here. Flipping burglars - was that just a pun or was she actually onto him? He could, and did, take it the former way. But it was possible she'd looked into him. Couldn't be too careful.

"Free time, I mostly do tourist-y stuff. Walk around, maybe head down to the beach every once in a while. Meet new people. Get the lay of the land, maybe scout out better places to park the truck." He dropped a patty onto the grill and let it sizzle there. "What about you? You seem like someone with a lot of time on your hands."

@j_the_toymaker:

Sitri sighed at the last comment, folding her arms on the counter in front of her. "My... temporally insane life coach convinced me that I wasn't doing anyone any favors by not accepting disability when I'd qualified for it, people like me are why we have the system, yadda yadda yadda. Anyway. The steady income makes life easy, but it doesn't make it interesting. Too much time is a good way to put it. I fill it, how I can, but there's always some things that aren't good to do just because you're bored. And some things just... don't work out."

No, probably best not to head down in that direction. "Anyway. Gives me plenty of time to hang out in the city, pretending I know what's going on. Maybe I should get a truck like you. Except I'm terrible at cooking and people get whiny if I say I'm gonna drive for some reason."

@demonboundsitri:

"I get that. But I don't think the truck's the right route for you. Less the driving, more the cooking." He turned her burger over. "If your job is what you liked, disability leave isn't your style, maybe you should go back. After all, what's life if you don't have anything to be passionate about?"

His passion was, yes, driving a truck and flipping burgers. The combination of cooking and travel... it had a certain allure to it. Maybe it was just the beast's animal-like instinct to wander over a broad territory. Maybe his own hunger was what made cooking such an enjoyable hobby. But whatever it was, Jay's life was at least somewhat content, at least when he wasn't starving and didn't feel threatened.

"I mean, it could be a someone, too," he added, absently pulling out a rag and starting to wipe the counter down, still facing her and the window but looking at his hand's work. "I take it you don't really have anyone to hang out in the city with?"

@j_the_toymaker:

"Mm." Sitri drew an invisible line on the countertop with her finger. "The job I liked doesn't exist any more. The world's got a way of changing, sometimes. Things change. Times change. People change. Sometimes I think I've finally become the person I needed to be six months ago, but I haven't the faintest idea who I need to be now."

LA had changed a lot, recently. Sitri had complained once that it was too crowded - too many metas, too little space. Everyone up in each others' business all the time. Then, so quickly it seemed, things had become... different. Moon Bird Studios had been sold. Unity had been extremely quiet after that Black Expanse debacle. Sure, they'd... sort of won, but the political relations since had been... chill. They'd lost a lot of the respect they'd once had. Part of that was that they'd gone out and actually attacked a sovereign nation - sure, the guy was an asshole and probably deserved what he got, but sovereign nations didn't like it when other sovereign nations were attacked. It made them nervous that they might be next. And a girl had died. Although the jury was out on whether she was dead or not... there were a few who insisted she wasn't, but Sitri wondered if that was just wishful thinking. In any case, given how much trouble Unity had been looking at, the project had been somewhat unofficially canceled. The ringleaders were retired from heroism. Graie, at least, was still in LA, but he'd made his retirement from heroism official. Apparently he'd gone and enrolled in college or something. Sitri didn't think he'd had it in him.

Vandal had been quiet as well, Sitri wasn't really sure why, but it almost seemed like he'd just lost interest in the world. She thought it likely he'd appear later and cause issues, but for now he didn't seem to be doing anything. The truth was that the whole world seemed to have gotten quieter lately. A lot of the major power-players had retired or dropped from the public eye, and while for a while she'd been expecting them to reappear en masse, it seemed now that they weren't likely to. New people were appearing and taking their place, but it seemed more and more like there were just a few remnants of a bygone era, waiting out the days to see what happened next.

Sitri could have been more involved, she supposed. Could have gotten out there, gotten in to some of the things going on more recently. Gotten to know some of the up-and-coming individuals. Sometimes she thought about it. Other times... well, other times, LA was just enough. A quiet city, where she could be reasonably useful. It wasn't going to win her any accolades, but she didn't really think that was what she wanted. Most of the time, she honestly wasn't all that sure what she wanted.

Sometimes she was. But even when she was sure, she knew that what she wanted probably wasn't something she could have. She knew she should just let it go, and move on. Like the guy with the burgers, move her metaphorical truck to a new location and get on with life. Some things, she'd managed to leave behind. Other things, though...

...other things she couldn't help hoping might come back. Some day. "I have people to hang out with," she answered the half-inquiry he'd ended with. "Just not the wrong ones."

@demonboundsitri:

No, I'm not lost, even though I've seen a house that looked exactly like that house at least twice by now. Drake's eyes fathomed the neighborhood, a quiescent, somewhat distanced assortment of houses, it had a rather religious air to it despite Drake not knowing clearly why he thought so. I'm sure the address is around here, unless she tricked me. Nah, that can't be it. The not-so-lost archer wandered the City of Angels seeking for his own fallen piece of heaven, who sometimes could sound more like a piece of his self-depreciating humor.

She could also shoot blindfolded like a pro and that was definitely hot.

A simper of nostalgia crossed his face, but an evanescent one at that. He had no time to remember their last encounter, in which he definitely won more than he could expect from walking the dog. It didn't matter how long he sought for her address, he would never seem to find it. Until, of course, he ultimately had to ask for directions. Needless to say he found the corner he had passed repeatedly whilst looking somewhere else in mere moments, just reassuring him that his stubborness and pride were one of his best qualities.

"Yeah, this corner wasn't here before, right? Right." Drake chuckled. "Must be a magical thing, actually, it definitely is a magical thing." Drake spoke to the wind, a foolish smile on his lips as his hasty steps grew even hastier. White t-shirt, a purple hoodie and a pair of jeans, it was all he could really care to wear during the travel, he had to be comfortable otherwise it just ruined the entire trip. Planes sucked.

Three knocks on the door, a woman rapidly picks it up, her head sneaking outside to meet the amicable greeting of a rare sight: a bandage-free Drake. "Hello, I'm Drake. Pleasure to meet you." He extended a hand. "Is Sitri home? She told me she lived here."