Darcy Anne (darcyanne) wrote in light_of_may, @ 2010-03-08 10:56:00 |
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Entry tags: | 2009-07-06 |
Am I more than you bargained for yet?
Who: Darcy and Tristan
Where: Sunny's Diner
When: Lunch time
What: Meeting new people
She'd spent the morning getting used to her new job at the dojo. Tessa and Troy were both very nice and she liked the environment. Predictably, the environment was a little laid back and she quite liked that. There was lots to be organized and she'd spent the morning answering the phone and trying to create a filing system for them. It was working out alright so far, but there was still a ton of work to be done. At least the month had begun and the schedule didn't have to be figured out for a few weeks. She'd be able to get her bearing and she was grateful for that.
Lunch time came around and she headed out to the diner, promising to bring something back for Troy for his lunch. She liked the man a lot. He was nice and his familiar was adorable. He proved to be somewhat of a distraction. Tessa's familiar was also interesting, but she wasn't sure he liked her. It was cool to work for elementals, ones who were open with what they were. It was nice. She admitted to them that she was also more than normal. It was something to get used to but she liked it.
Sitting down at the counter, she set her umbrella aside and ordered a cheeseburger and fries. Already, she was planning on asking for extra lettuce with Troy's order for Gambit and Inaki. Yeah, she was that kind of girl. Sipping her drink, she pulled out her phone to check her email and text Kiley to see how the date went.
He was starting to notice how more frequently he had to snort a line now than before. It was kind of funny how, while not jonesing for it in terms of rolling around the floor trembling, when he spent a long time without doing the drug, it was all he could think about. That had been the reason why Kitty had almost killed him the other day - he'd been distracted. And because he couldn't be distracted anymore, Tristan had snorted a line of cocaine from the dashboard of his car before stepping out and into Sunny's for lunch. Sure, someone like him could do much, much better, but Tristan wasn't in the mood for the tiny portions and the bullshit that they served in those types of restaurants.
The rain cam sprinkling down through his hair the short time it took for Tristan to walk from the car into Sunny's Diner, and he ran his fingers through it as if it would release some of the water that way. Sitting on the counter, Tristan noticed the woman beside him distracted by her cell phone, and then it occurred to him. He had no friends. All his time had been spent perfecting the gifts he'd been born with, and doing his father's bidding, and now that Tristan would have to fend for himself, he noticed there was no one else around. When the waitress came by to take his order Tristan looked at her with the weight of this realization as it had hit him, and the woman probably wasn't able to understand why he seemed so miserable about ordering a club sandwich with some hash browns and a soda. And that wasn't all Tristan was miserable about; making random, casual contact with other people hadn't been exactly his forte in many years, he probably shouldn't have illusions about starting now. At least he had Suspiria, he supposed, which was more than most people had.
With her text message sent, Darcy set her phone aside and realized that the seat next to her had been taken. While she didn't know the man beside her, he didn't seem like a terrible person. This was how she'd met Austin, waiting for food. Brushing that off memory, she glanced back at her phone to see if Kiley had texted her. Glancing back up again, she figured that, despite past precedent, she might as well be nice and at least say hello. They were going to be sitting next to each other for their meals and at least some part of her subconsciously had wanted someone to talk to, otherwise she wouldn't have sat at the counter.
She smoothed back her hair and looked over at him. He didn't look all that happy and she knew that she got a little sadder when it rained. To her, and her years working at a psychologist's office, she had a feeling that it was more than that. Would he tell a stranger? Did she want to know? Playing with her straw, she debated what to say before looking back at him and smiling softly. Their food arrived and she looked down at his plate. "You like hash browns over fries?" she asked, finding the choice a curious one and realizing all too late that it wasn't the best opening line for starting a conversation.
That was not the way Tristan would expect a conversation to start, if he'd expected one to start at all. He glanced at the woman beside him and snickered humorlessly. "It gets boring." He said simply, because getting fries every time did get boring. Although he liked hash browns very much, the choice hadn't been made simply for variety's sake. "Don't you think?" He finally added, looking at her completely now.
Darcy blushed a little at his snicker. "I guess so." She picked up one of the pieces of food in question and looked at it before taking a bite, resolving to not let that get together. "Then again, some people go to certain places for the staples. I know that no matter what, if I want it, I can come to this diner and order one of the best burgers I've ever had and be given perfectly good fries right along side it. Same as if I go to any other restaurant. I've got my favorites to come back to." If that made her a little boring, so be it. She liked burgers and fries. They were a good combination. Arching an eyebrow, she watched him as she polished off the fry and took a bite of her cheeseburger.
While the woman spoke, the waitress brought his order, and Tristan nodded in her direction as if to thank her, before eating some hash browns. "Both options aren't mutually exclusive, I don't think." He answered between bites. "But I like to vary, sometimes. Doesn't mean I don't have favorites, like everybody does." He wondered why this was still the conversation topic, or why it mattered so much what he was eating, but Tristan didn't ask. "The hash browns are great." He said before digging into the club sandwich.
She could have quoted a cliché but that seemed a moot point. For a moment, she was quiet, chewing thoughtfully, nodding at his comment about the hash browns. This place was like coming home for her; when ever she was having a bad day, food from this diner made her feel better. Not that she was having a bad day at all. Wiping at her mouth, she smiled over at him. "Mind if I ask what your favorite is? Food, I mean."
He wasn't sure if this woman's seeming obsession with food was annoying, or amusing him. Snickering, now a little more humorously, Tristan sighed and thought about it for a while before answering. "Pork Chop Suey, actually, but I didn't feel like going to the Chinese today." He said, with a smirk. "See?" He teased.
Darcy laughed a little. "Fair enough." She looked down at her food for a moment. "I'm Darcy, by the way. Not normally so food-focused." Taking a bite of her lunch, she watched him for a moment, trying to figure him out a little. She wasn't doing so well; this man didn't seem like an easy one to read. He kept snickering at her and she wasn't sure how to take that. Still, she wasn't going to stop talking to him. Made it seem like she wasn't eating alone.
When she laughed Tristan smiled, nodding. "Tristan." He said, going back to his food in a better mood. Maybe no man was really an island, he thought. It was certainly not doing him any favors so far. It wasn't going to kill him having a pleasant, casual conversation with someone. Especially someone of the opposite sex with what Tristan noticed to be a fairly decent pair of endowments. "May I ask what made you be so food-focused today? Were you really hungry?" He asked with a smirk.
Her laughter increased a little. "Maybe more so that I realized." She smiled at him. "First day at a new job seems to have made me ravenous." Of course, Darcy said this between bites of her burger. It was good and she was happy to be enjoying it. Glancing over at him, she didn't realize she was still blushing a little. "I'm not normally." She didn't know what to say to him. "Suppose you don't focus so much on food?" Darcy, glancing over at him, popped another french fry.
"Congratulations are in order, then." He said with a smile, popping a bit of his sandwich in his mouth afterwards. Tristan found it amusing that she seemed to be defending herself from the accusation of being focused on food. He hoped she wasn't feeling bad about it, that wasn't his objective, anyway. "Nothing wrong with loving food, it's one of the greatest pleasures one can experience." He said, grinning. "Not really, no. Not until I have to eat, that is."
Smiling, she looked over at him again. "Thank you," she said. Darcy was half done with her burger and put it down for a moment. Wiping her hands, she couldn't help but watch him. He was just someone she wasn't sure how to take. Was he being serious with her? Humoring her? "I do like cooking. Mixing flavors and trying something new." Resting her chin on her hand, she told herself to stop being so juvenile and just talk to him. "Then what do you focus on, Tristan?" she asked casually.
Tristan nodded. "I am Italian, so cooking kind of comes with that, I guess." Although he hadn't cooked in a long ass time, but at least he learned how to. It couldn't be all blood hunting and witchcraft, after all. Her question threw him off some, leaving Tristan staring back at her for a while before answering. "Uh...Work, I guess. What do you focus on besides food?" He reverted the question right away.
Her father had been part Italian, but not enough to actually bring that up in conversation. "That's what I hear." Italians were all about food. How many of the shows on the Food Network were featuring cooks of Italian descent? God, why was she so food obsessed today? And why was she wanting to suggest they cook together some time? Her life was going through changes right now. The last think she needed to be thinking was the cute guy next to her could be anything more than a casual acquaintance within the first half hour of meeting the man. This is what had gotten her into trouble in the past. No more romance novels for a week. "Well, since the job is new, can't say work just yet. But reading. Spending time with my best friend." Getting attacked by demons. Well, that wasn't a hobby or anything. Otherwise she'd be a masochist or something and that was definitely not Darcy by any stretch of the imagination. "And I just got a new roommate."
What a quiet life Darcy's sounded like. Tristan smiled as she listed her hobbies, and he realized he hadn't read a good book in a while. He needed to get on that. He also didn't have a best friend, but then again he never had. Suspiria counted as his best friend, because she, apparently, protected and guided him no matter what he did. After Darcy told him she had a new roommate, Tristan raised his eyebrows in admiration. "Your life sounds like it's going through a lot of changes right now." He observed, smiling some more. "New job, new roommate. I hope you didn't move here recently too, otherwise that's a whole lot of change. I don't know if I wouldn't be scared if that were me."
Unable to help it, she laughed a little at that. "I've been living here about three years so not quite an entirely new life. Still, it's pretty close. I haven't had a roommate since I graduated college, so it'll be interesting." Unless of course you counted the fact that she knew her brother was around. She missed working for Rupert, knowing that he had been the one to open the communication between herself and her brother. Still, Darcy knew he was there and that in and of itself was a blessing. "I think I needed the change though. I can't complain about it much. I think the scariest part is going to see how my roommate and I interact. We're both a little OCD," she admitted with a faint blush.
"I've never had a roommate." He mused, looking up with his hand supporting his chin. "I don't think I am cut out for that, either." Tristan assessed, with a shrug. An individualist he was, plus most of his activities were too shady for him to take the risk of having someone present as he was performing them. Tristan smirked. "If one of you were obsessive-compulsive, and the other a lazy mess that would be much, much worse, I think." He told her.
"Only child?" she asked after the roommate comment, raising a curious eyebrow. Maybe that was it. Darcy had grown up with two amazing older siblings and she considered herself lucky for it, despite how much she missed her big brother. His words about living with someone messy had her making a face and yet laughing all the same. "That would be a disaster!" she replied, shaking her head. Definitely not something that she would have wanted at all. She was glad Langston was a neat person.
Tristan eyed her with a knitted brow. "Does being an only child influence people's individualistic tendencies?" He asked playfully. Of course people always had assumptions about people who were only children, things like the fact that they were selfish, or didn't play well with others. In Tristan's experience, selfishness didn't have anything to do with the number of siblings one had. And people wanting their own space protected from strangers was more than understandable, regardless of their family life. "I agree, I hear it can do a number on one's nerves." He said conversationally, pausing to have some more food.
Darcy had spent enough time in a psychologist's office to think that it did. So she nodded as she finished her last fry. "Actually yeah, I do. Statistically, most only children are very set in their ways." It was a fact she'd picked up somewhere along the way. Shrugging, she took a bite of pickle. "Not the only reason people don't like roommates. But I'm guessing, from your question back, you are an only child." She looked over at him for confirmation of this fact, curious if she was right.
Regarding her with narrowed eyes, Tristan tilted his head. Her response to his question was odd, because he didn't remember asking anything that warranted her answering in the first person, but that wasn't even the weirdest thing about her answer. It was the logic behind her reasoning, statistics or no. "So I suppose, on the other side of the spectrum, people with siblings are more easily influenced and less set in their ways? I think that is a bad thing, honestly." He shrugged, blinking slowly before returning to his food. As a way to confirm Darcy's guessing, Tristan looked up at her and smirked. "So what if I am? Apparently, I have a very marked personality and very well defined tastes. Or something." He said, playfully once more.
She realized what she'd done and blushed a little. "Well, I suppose I see your point. Sorry, I'm used to facts like that." And apparently blurting them out at random. Stupid former job. Who knew, soon she would be spouting self-defence stats for anyone who would listen. Darcy needed to get her head on straight and focus on the here and now and not the past. "Well defined tastes aren't always terrible," she offered, taking a sip of her soda. "Then again I'm the youngest of three and I can be set in my ways as well. So much for statistics."
"No need to apologize, you didn't exactly offend me." Hell if he hadn't heard much, much worse than statistical facts. His father had been outed as a blood dealer after all. Though Tristan supposed the innocent-and-burdened-by-his-father's-mi
Darcy missed him checking her out. She had polished off her food and pushed her plate forward. Glancing over at him, she smiled as she reached for the menu again to order lunch for people at work. The waitress returned and she ordered two burgers and an extra side of lettuce. For the familiars, of course, but she wasn't going say that out loud. Once her to go order was placed, her attention was back on Tristan. He was kind of cute. But she had sworn off men. Especially ones she met randomly over food. "Suppose I don't mind being the exception. And you're right. It's not terrible to know what you want." If only she did.
As he watched Darcy order more food, he did wonder briefly if that was also for her. Not that he was one to judge, especially because whatever she ate was working wonders for her; but without knowing her so well she still looked like the kind of girl who would worry about calories and fattening foods and whatever else. He shrugged. It wasn't that interesting a theme, anyway. When she turned her attention back to him, Tristan nodded, smiling slightly. "No, it's pretty good." He paused, looking at her as if he was observing her and deciding on something. "Do you tend to know what you want, or...?"
The look her was giving her made her curious, but not enough to say anything. "Well, for the most part, I do. Like with getting a new roommate. I wanted a change, new people in my life and I got them." Darcy sipped her soda and tried very hard not to blush under his gaze. She wasn't that interesting. Or at least, she didn't think so. He, on the other hand, was very interesting. And very hard to read. She liked to think of herself as a good judge of character but that didn't always work out so well.
Sometimes Tristan wondered if he needed a change. Then, he reminded himself that he'd gotten one, in his father's death, and perhaps it would be a good idea to keep it simple for the time being. He smiled approvingly. "It takes guts to want a change and go through with it, so I guess you need a little pat in the back for that." Running a hand through his hair, Tristan finished his drink. "And I think it also shows you're very set in your ways." He added, smirking.
Now she was blushing a little at the compliment. "Thanks." 'I think.' Crossing her legs, she shifted on the stool a little. "I suppose I am, but like you said, not a terrible thing." Darcy pulled her hair back over her shoulders as she finished her soda and pushed the glass away. "What about you? Do you know what you want?"
It was funny how they had come full circle and Darcy had come to agree with his opinion through her own experience. Tristan wouldn't call it manipulation, but it felt good - and amusing - nonetheless. It was good to be right, after all. He watched as she pulled her hair back with a smile, something unusual for Tristan, who didn't usually 'watch' women do anything. But, like he was ever so reminded by his own thoughts, it had 'been a while', and dammit if he didn't like long, shiny hair. Color wasn't important. Darcy's question didn't surprise him, but that did not mean he had an answer ready. Shrugging, Tristan thought about it for a while before answering. "I think I do." On second thought... "I don't want much, right now." He confessed.
"But do you know what that not much is?" she asked, not really needing to know specifically what the unnamed it was. Her fingers toyed idly with tie of her shirt as she watched him. Darcy couldn't wait for her order to get there so she could pay. It wasn't that he made her uncomfortable. Far from it. She just didn't know what to think when he was looking at her like that. "I mean, as long as you know for certain what you want and it'll benefit you, and not, like, kill anyone in the process, you should have it. Right?" And she was rambling a little again.
Here she was with the damn difficult questions. Or rather, questions that begot difficult answers. Instead of enumerating exactly what he wanted at the moment, which while not much was something, Tristan snickered, pushing his hair behind his ear. "Yeah." He answered simply. For instance, he kind of wanted her; that would be nice. But he wasn't a creeper - or tried not to be - and he wasn't going to play those cards. Not like that, anyway. Having to make an effort not to laugh at the irony of what she said about killing people when compared to his own private life, Tristan nodded effusively in agreement. "Yeah, yeah, of course. I agree." He smiled again.
Her food order arrived and she took the check and held it in her hand. She needed to get back to work, especially now that she had her bosses' food. It was probably best, seeing as she had completely embarrassed herself. Darcy offered him a smile. "Well, sadly, what I want and what I can have are two different things at the moment. I want to not have to go back to work but I have to." Which wasn't entirely the case. She actually enjoyed the new job so far. "It was nice to meet you."
Snickering at such a very real example of wanting and having to do different things, Tristan nodded. "I know the feeling, I kind of have to do the same." And he was willing to bet her job might not be so hard after a pleasant lunch as his was. Then again, he had chosen to work there with no need to, so there was that. He'd brought it upon himself. "Sad that you have to go so soon." He said, and meant it. Healthy interaction with a female seemed to be lacking these days, and Tristan welcomed it. "Are you busy after work?" He attempted, knowing full well if she was interested she would probably say no, and if she wasn't, she could make up an excuse even if she wasn't busy at all.
Her? Busy? Hah, that was funny. "Um, not really." There was laundry to be done. Why was he asking her? Darcy wasn't sure what to say to that. She had laundry that needed to be done, but that wasn't anything major. But here was this attractive guy asking her if she had plans. She wasn't used to attention like that. First Austin asking her out and then going entirely too fast. And now Tristan. The world felt off, like this was a dream or Fate's joke.
And there it was, the chance to be blatant about it, to stop beating around the bush. With a smile, Tristan sighed before speaking. "Wanna go for a drink?" He asked, trying his best to lay his charm on her which, according to a few people, resided in his dimples, or some such. So, he smiled more and waited for an answer. Hopefully he hadn't lost it, whatever it was.
Oh, God, he was asking her out. And she was torn. Should she say no? Would it be wise? But then again, it was just a drink. He wasn't asking to kiss her, he wasn't even touching her, not nearly as much as Austin had. And he seemed nice, not overly flattering or anything. So she opened her mouth and found herself saying, "Sure. That would be nice." Darcy smiled and opened her phone. "Why don't you give me your number. I'll give you mine and we can figure out a place to meet up."
Instantly, a smile drew on Tristan's lips. This was going well already. At least something was. He reached for her phone and typed his phone number in quickly, slipping his own phone out of his pocket and handing it to her along with hers. "Here you go, my number's already in there." He said, smile still in place. "Now, yours." He asked, running a hand through his hair. While he waited, Tristan pulled enough money out of his wallet to pay for his food and left it on the counter.
She took his phone and punched her number in with her name and smiled as she handed it back. "Here you go. I'm out around 6:30ish or so." Still getting used to the dojo, she was going to have to figure out what closings would entail and everything. But now she did have something to look forward to. Darcy was actually getting a little excited about it. It was nice to know she had something to enjoy at the end of the day.
"Alright I'll give you a call around that time." He said, still smiling. "See you later, Darcy." He said as he walked past her, placing his hand on her shoulder briefly before leaving the diner and returning to his car. At least now his life did not consist of irritating slave sirens and little else. That was something.