angelus (rosier) wrote in disorderic, @ 2017-11-06 00:53:00 |
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The little bell situation above the door jingled signalling the chocolate shop’s first visitor. Unofficially, of course, given opening day was tomorrow, but Angelus had invited a former classmate to take a look at the store. And hopefully reassure some of his more dramatic former classmates that he wasn’t intent on poisoning everyone. “Corner,” Angelus greeted warmly, ushering her into the store properly with a grand gesture of his arms swishing. “Welcome to my newest humble little establishment.” Of course the place was hardly humble, with elegantly packaged goods, flowing chocolate fountains, and a beautiful little serenade from some classical wizarding orchestra pieces delicately playing in the background. Humble it was not. Chelsea was in awe of the shop, her eyes darting around to capture everything around her. Even with his wealth, it seemed like too much. But it was for a good cause, she reminded herself. It didn't matter how it was presented. "Hi," she said, unable to take her eyes off the chocolate fountain at the center of the shop. "How did you make all of this happen so quickly?" Angelus merely rubbed his palms together mischievously and gave Chelsea a knowing smile. “It’s not hard. Magic, a little money, and voila, you get all of this.” He plucked a package of milked chocolates from one of the shelves and tossed it at the hitwizard. “Try it. It’s homemade, so to speak. As in the back of the shop.” She caught it just before it missed her hand and held it up to inspect. It looked normal. The packaging was embossed with the Rosier's logo and her first inclination was to trust that nothing had been tampered with. Unfortunately, and she blamed Baz for this, Chelsea couldn't help but be wary. She placed it in her bag instead, nodding her head at Angelus. "I'll try it later. How many kinds of chocolate do you have?" Spying that his friend had deflected that, Angelus resisted the urge to sigh and point out that poisoning patrons was generally a poor business practice, and he wasn’t trying to lose money for no reason. Nonetheless, he clasped his hands together and gave a charismatic smile. “Oh, hell, tons. Milk, white, almond, hazelnut… you can see our full menu over there—” he pointed to a pedestal with an open, stylized menu that wouldn’t have been out of place at a high class restaurant “— although I’ve heard rumours that once you go dark, you never go back.” Chelsea gaped at him, her face contorting into a grimace on its own. "You've heard that about chocolate." Unperturbed, Angelus informed her: “I’ve heard lots of things. I’m worldly.” "I don't really understand your life," she said, with a shake of her head. "Or really, most of the things you say." “I don’t hold it against you,” Angelus replied without missing a beat. He moved after that, leading Chelsea further into the store and in the direction of the centerpiece -- the large chocolate fountain. From the edge of the ornate, golden fountain he snatched up a waiting goblet and gestured towards one of the flows cascading from an upper layer. “Goblet of chocolate for your tour?” Presented with the goblet, Chelsea found it difficult to find a way to reject it without making it obvious that she suspected him of tampering with it. But that was her Baz-paranoid side speaking, and when she looked at the chocolate fountain again, she knew it didn't make sense. If he wanted to poison her, everyone would know who the culprit was, because they knew where she was, and besides, it made little sense to poison the chocolate fountain the day before the business opened. She finally grabbed the goblet and scooped up some of the chocolate, hesitantly tasting a drop of it. "It's good," she said, a little apologetically. While that was going on the goblet had magically duplicated itself on the edge so that Angelus, too, could get a heaping goblet-full as well. He brought it up to his nose a wafted it as if it was a glass of fine wine before dipping a finger into it. “Of course it is, it’s Rosier’s.” Apparently he could say this all with a straight face, but if there was one thing Angelus Rosier knew it was quality so that wasn’t in question. “I know what you’re thinking because I’m a genius, but no, everything is reasonably priced. Some of the basic milk chocolate is a bit cheaper than most competitors, even.” Which was based on Imogen’s idea of having a cheap, readily available chocolate for dementor encounters, but there was no sense in letting Chelsea know it wasn’t his brain child. Chelsea refrained from correcting him (she'd, in fact, been thinking about how pompous he sounded), and dipped into the chocolate again. Now that he'd tasted it, she could be rest assured (and assure the paranoid-Baz voice) that nothing had been done to it. "That's really nice of you, Angelus. This is going to help a lot of people. I wish you didn't have to, but if Dementors are going to keep being around…" she trailed off, already upset at the thought. "Anyways, it's good of you." “Well, dementor’s are shit,” Angelus stated bluntly and honestly. It’s not like he had any love for them, either. No one really did. He shrugged and dipped a finger into his chocolate and then brought it to his mouth despite how horrifying that action could have been construed. It was innocent, however. “People need to stop freaking out over something everyone needs anyway,” he added thoughtfully, watching Chelsea’s reaction. She sighed. "Baz," she said, because that was who his catch-all really meant, "just has a lot of concerns. But after he sees this, I'm sure he'll change his mind." There was very little chance of that happening, but she liked to hold out hope. “Barnaby is going to give himself a heart attack,” came the casual reply as if Angelus didn’t care in the slightest. That was a likely outcome if he didn’t get himself killed by Lucius Malfoy first. “Maybe I’ll do some charity in his name or something so he can’t get mad.” He brought his non-chocolate-covered hand to scratch his chin in thought. "No!" Chelsea said immediately, wincing at her volume. "I think he'd definitely hate that. You should start small. Like this chocolate shop!" Frown lines creased Rosier’s forehead. “It’s charity, how can you hate charity?” "He doesn't hate charity! It's just that…" Chelsea paused slightly, "he doesn't like people —" she meant Angelus, "doing things for him. He's very independent." “By independent you mean dramatic.” "No," she said loyally, although anyone who knew Baz could and would agree. But this was his nemesis she was talking to, and she knew the rules. "Some people — like Baz — think that doing charity work for someone takes the sincerity out of their own work. That's all." Thoroughly unconvinced, Angelus fixed Chelsea with a skeptical look. “I guess,” he scoffed. “Was he like ‘Chelesa I bet ROSIER is making chocolate that smells like your shampoo!!!’ and stomping his foot earlier?” "Of course not," Chelsea dismissed, although he'd done something almost eerily similar to Angelus' description. Baz was too predictable when it came to Rosier. "But it's really your own fault for bringing up the shampoo comparisons." “It was totally not my fault,” Angelus countered. Okay, so the whole thing about Chelsea’s shampoo really was his fault, but he wasn’t going to admit that openly. Having spent more than enough time discussing Baz, Rosier decided to wrap the subject back around to his pet project, the chocolate store. “Annnnnyway, I’m giving all of Class of ‘08 a 50% discount on anything here.” "Really?" came her surprised question. “No I’m actually going to just say that and then charge you double at the till. Yes, of course really. C’mon, Chelsea.” "You were all about running a business, though," she pointed out. But hastily, she added, "Not that it's not a good idea! This is great." “How much chocolate do you possibly think our class is going to eat?” He paused though as a thought crossed his mind that was absurd, but also given some of the people in their class… “Unless you think people are going to be dumb and go chase dementors.” For some reason that thought was a little disconcerting. "Gwen wasn't serious about that." She wasn't entirely sure of her own certainty behind that, but for the time being, she was at least sure that she'd convinced her away from the plan. "I don't think you should worry." “I’m not worried,” Angelus retorted. “Maybe people should just eat chocolate instead of trying to get their souls sucked out.” Chelsea rolled her eyes. "I'd much rather the first thing happen than the second. But it's really the Dementors who are at fault here." After collecting more chocolate from the fountain in his half-empty goblet, Rosier shrugged. “Obviously I’m not saying dementors are great.” There could, of course, be a little less of people being idiots constantly and just going with the flow of the new world, but he supposed that was too much to realistically hope for especially with some of these people. He raised his goblet in an attempt at cheers. “Still, gave me the idea to open this place anyway.” "And because you wanted to help people who needed it," she insisted, raising her own goblet and tipping it in his direction. Yes, that. Flashing a smile, the goblets clunked together unceremoniously given they weren’t champagne glasses or anything of the sort. “Yes, to me.” He let his smile hold for a while, and then snickered. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding.” "Let's not get carried away," she warned, turning to look around again. "Okay, show me the rest of the shop." |