sonic_siren (sonic_siren) wrote in musingslogs, @ 2011-05-29 22:56:00 |
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Entry tags: | black canary, eric draven |
Who: Laura and Jack
What: Blind Date!
Where: Bathos and a pizza place near by
When: May 20th? Two Fridays ago backdated
Warnings: First date-ness!
It had been long enough since Laura was last on a date that she was just a little nervous. It was a good feeling, though, and she hummed to herself while got ready. She’d had no idea what to wear, but decided that she’d keep it fairly casual in a pair of jeans and a grey v-neck sweater, the weather still slightly cool at night. She hadn’t asked for suggestions from either Gwen or Max, figuring that any of their opinions would likely be inappropriate.
She finished getting ready and decided that it would be better to wait in the lobby of the building, even if she was a little early, so she made her way down a few minutes before 6, nervous but hoping to have a good time.
Jack had been feeling a little out of sorts lately, but he was hoping the date would set things right again. He hadn’t been on one in years, and it would be a welcome distraction from everything else. And anyway, he’d always been an expert of tucking everything away that might upset anyone else and remaining upbeat in the presence of others. However hopeless things felt of late, maybe a change of pace, going out with someone and leaving thoughts of Max and the dreams behind, would do him good.
He was at the entrance to Bathos almost precisely at six. He’d had enough time after work to go home and change out of his grease-stained clothes, get clean, and arrive in worn but clean pair of dark jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. He’d never met Laura, but she wasn’t too difficult to spot, standing inside the lobby, looking like she was waiting for someone. He stepped inside. “Laura?” He knew what to expect from most people’s first impression. They didn’t even think about it, but their eyes were almost guaranteed to trace the scar that arced over his nose and hover on his discolored eye before their decorum kicked in and they remembered not to stare. He just hoped it didn’t totally disqualify him.
Laura heard the front door of the building open and turned to see if it was who she was expecting, when she realized that she really had no idea what Jack looked like. The man that walked in was young enough to fit the bill, and he confirmed it when he said her name. She smiled widely in return. "Jack?" She crossed the lobby and held out her hand to shake his. That's when she noticed the scar across his face, and she blinked once with her hand still out. She studied him closer, frankly, but didn't drop her hand, and then nodded, giving him another, smaller but no less sweet, smile. "It's nice to meet you."
He took her hand, shaking it and smiling as he did so. Charming gesture, shaking hands on a date. “Nice to meet you too. I hope they talked badly about me so you’re not disappointed.” He held the door for her on their way out of the lobby, and then nodded off to the left. “The place is this way. So how do you know Max and Gwen?”
Laura laughed quietly and shook her head. "They actually had very good things to say about you. Sorry to say." She smiled over at him as they walked, following in the direction he indicated. She was fairly sure she knew which pizza place they were headed toward, but let him lead anyway. "They said you were nice. And attractive. And other disgusting girl talk." She slanted another grin over at him. "I've known Gwennie since high school, but Max I just met. Actually that night we all went out drinking. Which is all I'm going to say about that particular escapade."
“Now I’m disappointed,” he said, smiling. “I wish they’d given you lower expectations rather than build you up with disgusting girl talk.”
“Gwennie?” he repeated, smiled widening a touch. “I’m shocked by that one, I always thought anyone who offered Gwen less than total respect would get firmly put in their place. I’ll have to call her that the next time I see her. And drinking? I never would have guessed, the texts were so... articulate.”
Laura could feel herself smiling more than she had in a while (at least without the aid of alcohol). She’d forgotten how nice it could be to simply go out with another person and talk to them. Flowers were nice, but they weren’t good conversationalists. Maybe this date wasn’t such a bad idea after all. Not that she would ever give Gwen or Max the satisfaction of telling them so. “It’s nice to be built up though.” She smirked at him. “Gives you something to work toward.”
The laugh was startled out of her, and she shook her head. “Oh god no! Don’t call her that; she’ll kill you. Possibly with her bare hands. I don’t know why she still lets me get away with it, other than shared history.” Her grin stayed wide with her laughter. “Is she still pulling that ‘don’t mess with me, I’m a cop’ thing with people? I haven’t been back long enough to see it in action, but I know she used to.” She tried to tone down the smile, but her eyes were still bright. “And I don’t know what you mean. I’m sure that all of us were very articulate that night.”
“I’ll do my best to meet expectations,” he said. “That’s what I thought. I think I’m a little too scared of the possible consequences of that one to actually go for it.” The issue with Gwen wasn’t her history as a policewoman, of course, but it was certainly close enough. “She is, and she’s very good at it. I have yet to meet someone she can’t keep in line.” An exaggeration, of course - the one time he’d gone off the reservation she’d taken the Bat’s lead and cut him off entirely. For the most part, however, she seemed perfectly capable of bullying or scolding all the masks into following orders, den mother that she was. “Maybe articulate is the wrong word,” he said. “Effusive might be better. Or talkative.”
Laura smiled again and looked over at Jack. “I’m sure if I start telling everyone to not be afraid of her, I’m going to ruin whatever reputation she’s built up among her friends. Though it would be funny to see people treating her like the big softie she is.” She walked quietly for a bit, grinning at the thought of their girls’ night out. “Now effusive I can believe. I don’t think we shut up at all once we started.”
They had reached the restaurant, and he held the door for her going in. The place was nice, inexpensive but a find, and he could at least guarantee the food would be good. It had seemed like a natural choice. It felt a little strange, talking about normal things in the wake of the last few days, but it was, he was sure, precisely what he needed right now. “There’s nothing wrong with being effusive,” he said, as they were led to a table close to the window. “Whose idea was the texting? My money would be on you or Max.”
Laura gave him another smile as he held the door open for her. Most of the time no one made that kind of effort, and it was appreciated. It was looking to be a good date so far - a way to forget the dreams and the people that wouldn’t leave her mind alone. The scent of the food was almost surprisingly good as she followed along to the table. “You know, I don’t even know for sure?” She laughed as she sat. “I’d like to say it wasn’t my idea, as I don’t usually go for things like texting, but I vaguely remember trying to play around with Gwen’s phone, so it may have been me. I wasn’t the one to do the actual texting though! No one would’ve been able to read a thing if I had!” She smiled over at him, completely willing to admit her technophobia.
“What, you mean you have trouble with those tiny letter buttons? Can’t imagine why. I don’t think they were actually built for human fingers,” he said, as they sat down. He told the waiter he would be fine with water, and once the man was gone, took the opportunity to get a better look at Laura. It was funny, but he wasn’t the least bit worried about the conversation part of the evening. He’d already had so much experience with talking around the parts of his life that couldn’t be spoken of that it hardly seemed like a challenge. “So how long have you been in Humanity?” he asked. His own reasons for crossing over had been so dire that he liked to hope those of others were a little less catastrophic.
Laura shook her head at the thought of her phone and texting. "I have a hard enough time on a regular-sized keyboard, as I'm sure all the people I type to can tell you. I've had more than one person threaten typing lessons on me." She took a drink of her water to cover her surprise at his question. She supposed it made sense that Gwen would introduce her to someone that had crossed the portal, too, but she wasn't used to talking about it. She did some mental math on the years. "I think about five years now. Most of it I was in Washington DC. I just got into Seattle recently." She paused, thinking of the things that had happened since she moved, but gave her head a little shake, trying to push them out of her mind. It wasn't something she wanted to focus on during dinner. "I'm not used to talking about coming over. I haven't known that many people from back home. ...at least none that I knew about."
"I was fairly sure I'd seen you make a post," Jack said, with a small smile. "Hence being sure you were from Musings. I've been here for two years, but I didn't know any Creations until about a year ago, when the boards started up. I knew that Hamartia was all Creation-based of course, but...I was still adjusting to the switch, really." He didn't ask why she'd come, sure though he hoped it was something good that she would have offered it had it been. "What do you think of things here?"
Laura laughed as she winced. "If it was full of typos, that was probably me, yes. Unless there's someone else that butchers their typing." She looked right at him as she spoke, smiling the entire time. "I like it well enough, I think. I'm still getting used to it, of course. It has its good days and bad days, I've found. Though it helps that I've found Gwen again. It's always easier with a friend around." She paused, realizing that she'd been talking an awful lot about herself. "...what about you? Have you settled in more now?"
“I know there’s someone else who types phonetically?” he offered, smiling a little. “I don’t think you’re totally alone. Anyway, typos are hardly anything to feel guilty about. It is the internet after all, isn’t it?”
“I’d agree with that,” he said. “I have, actually. I’ve met quite a few people in the year I’ve been on the boards. The first two years were admittedly more difficult, adjusting and all of that.” ‘Adjusting’ was certainly a glossing term for it, but he could hardly go into details. “It helped to be able to talk to people who understood the strange circumstances we’re all in.”
“So I should remain strong in the face of typing lessons? I’m afraid I’ll just have to give in some day. Even if I don’t want to.” She laughed and slipped her fingers distractedly around the rim of her glass before picking it up for another drink.
She nodded seriously at the talk of adjusting, even though she didn’t really go through the same thing. She hadn’t found her ability for a while after she moved, so the switch to DC was just like moving within Musings, at least for a while. “I guess I never really needed to talk to anyone about the circumstances. There really weren’t circumstances for me, other than not being able to call my parents or my old friends.” Not that Gwen had been as open to calls at the time, but she wasn’t going to tell Jack about that.
“Never give in,” he said. “If you don’t want to, don’t let anyone make you. Call it a quirk and make an asset of it.”
There had been circumstances for him, of course, circumstance upon circumstance, but going into those over dinner would put one off their appetite. “So what do you do? Is it the same sort of job you used to work in Musings?” It seemed not many people took full advantage of the opportunity to completely restart their lives when they came to Humanity, perhaps seeking something familiar in foreign lands by clinging closely to what things they still knew.
The waitress approached and he laughed a little. “More importantly, I think, what do you like on your pizza?”
Laura laughed again at the thought of her typing being an asset, and shook her head at the question about her job. “I’m a florist here. I was...” She chuckled again, this time at herself. “And no, it’s not the same thing. I was studying to become a lawyer before I came over. Things...” She paused, going quiet and thoughtful for a moment before smiling again, this one not quite as wide as before. “...Things didn’t work out. And I decided I needed a change. So I came over and started something new.” She never really thought about how crazy that might sound to someone else.
“And I like almost everything. Except green peppers and anchovies. I’m not a hundred percent sold on pineapple either.” She wrinkled her nose slightly, but her smile was at least fully real again.
“So not everything at all,” he said, smile widening a little. “How about...pepperoni and black olives? Thank you.” The waitress disappeared. “I hope that’s acceptable, you left me with too many options.”
It didn’t sound crazy to him at all, not considering the reasons he had crossed over. “Sometimes our lives turn in ways we don’t expect,” he said, and finally, a little reality broke through the determined cheerfulness, his determination not to show that there was anything more to him than a general kind of quiet brightness, something a little darker, more pensive, though he was still smiling. “Someone told me recently that everything that happens to us is fate. I don’t know if I believe it, but who knows - maybe you were always meant to be a florist here and not a lawyer there. It’s not much of a comfort, surely, but it does lend a certain kind of...continuity to life. I can see why the idea appeals.”
Laura slanted a smile at Jack as he ordered the pizza. “I said almost everything. And pepperoni and black olives sounds good. I approve of your choice. I didn’t mean to overwhelm you with options.”
She made a soft sound of agreement as the conversation turned slightly more serious, her smile more careful and thoughtful. “I don’t know if I believe in fate so much. I like to hope that I have a little more control over my own life than that. If not, then what’s the point in trying? If everything’s already planned out, then it doesn’t matter how we treat other people or what we do with our lives... It seems kind of sad to me.” She shrugged, more philosophical than many people ever saw her. “I suppose it could appeal to some people, but it seems like it just would give us the opportunity to not take responsibility for our actions.”
“Funnily enough, I feel much the same way,” he said. “I argued similarly against the person who told me they believed in it. I agree that I think it gives people too much opportunity to lean on something larger than themselves so they don’t have to be at fault.” He paused, and laughed a little. “But this is much too serious conversation for dinner. I’m sorry.”
Laura laughed a little too and shook her head. “No, don’t apologize. I don’t mind. And it’s not like I stopped it myself.” She took a sip of her water and smiled over at him across the table. “Mostly I talk to customers, and there isn’t much time for serious conversation when you’re trying to explain that no, ten dollars won’t buy a full arrangement of roses. No, not even older ones I have in the back.” She smirked a little, turning the conversation back to lighter things. She wasn’t kidding though about the customers. Really, what were some people thinking?
“People have no appreciation for art,” he said, smiling. “...Although I have to admit, I might have made the same mistake. Does it really cost that much?” The closest he’d come to buying anything like it had been a bouquet, once, and he hadn’t thought anything of it. “Do you have any interesting repeat customers? People leaving bouquets for movie stars or famous poets at their graves?” The waitress arrived then with the food, settling the pizza on the table. “Ladies first,” he said, magnanimously, as if the courtesy ought to extend to everything, pizza included.
Laura smiled as she took some of the pizza, stretching the cheese into threads and then carefully winding it around a finger to try to get it to separate from the rest of the pie. “It does cost a fair amount, depending on what flowers you’re using. The harder to acquire and keep alive, the more expensive it’ll be. And then if you start mixing them...” She shrugged a bit, not wanting to turn the entire conversation to flowers. She laughed softly at the next question though. “I haven’t really been here long enough to acquire any ‘regulars’, really. That’s part of the plan, though. It only takes a few repeat customers to really get a shop to take off.” She took a bite of the pizza after blowing on it enough to cool it a little, and almost had to stop to savor it. Jack wasn’t lying when he said their pizza was good. She murmured through a mouthful. “Oh my god.”
He smiled at her expression. “Good,” he said, taking a bite of his own piece. “Glad I didn’t lead you astray. What made you pick flowers?” he asked. “Seems like quite the shift from being a lawyer. Was it always something you were interested in?” He took another bite of the food. It had been a while since he’d eaten - his body didn’t work precisely the same way most people’s did, so he tended to forget for long stretches, and food always tasted particularly good when he chose to break fast.
Laura raised her hand, lifting her finger to signal that he should give her just a second to enjoy the mouthful of pizza she had. She finished it slowly, then set the slice down so that she wouldn’t be tempted to keep eating as she talked. “I don’t know what it was, exactly. I just remember going to my classes, and they just weren’t what I’d hoped, and I’d go home every night and call Gwen to complain. And somehow the shop just popped into my head and never left. I ended up talking about it all the time, pretty much planned everything down to the name and how I wanted the shop to look. So when I moved to DC, and I had a little money... it just seemed like the right thing to do.” The ‘had a little money’ was glossed over with a wave of her hand and a slight frown as she kept talking.
He didn’t pry. She could have come about the money in any number of ways - there was no need to question it. “It makes sense,” he said. “If you’re not satisfied where you are, I think it’s natural to find some other goal to fixate on, something else, a fantasy of what could be. You’re lucky that you were able to turn that into a reality, I’m jealous.”
Laura gave him a small smile, focusing on another bite of her pizza before saying anything else. “I like to think I could have maybe found a way to be satisfied with being a lawyer. If for no other reason than to make my mother happy.” She gave a twisted smile at that. “But with everything else going on at that point in time, it just didn’t fit. This, at least, seems to fit.” She went thoughtful for a moment before laughing softly to herself. “I’d like to be able to make a little more of a difference to people, but I suppose having flowers to brighten their day will have to be enough for now.”
She couldn’t help turning her attention to her pizza, still making conversation between bites, and the rest of the date seemed to fly by, until there were only smears of sauce and a few lone black olives left on the pan. She was shocked to see how much time had passed when she looked at her watch, and the way the server kept hovering, as if trying to chase them away from the table to get new customers. She had to admit that she didn’t quite want to leave, though.
Jack found himself feeling the creeping edges of something like contentment by the time he finally walked Laura back to her door. It had been a long time since anything had managed to successfully stave off his worries and his fears, but he enjoyed Laura’s company, and was surprised by how much less he was forced to act as if everything was normal than he expected. It felt good to just pretend everything else didn’t exist for a little while, and when they made it to the door of Bathos, he was still smiling. “We should do this again sometime,” he said. “If I haven’t totally scared you off yet.”
Laura smiled and laughed quietly, shaking her head. “I don’t scare easily. And I had a really good time too.” She paused for just a moment, thoughtful even though it didn’t take much thought. “I’d like to see you again. I haven’t had a date this nice in a long time.” She hesitated for just a second, not knowing how forward to be, but finally leaned in and pressed a quick kiss to the corner of his mouth.
When she pulled back, he was smiling. He took her hand, and he kissed her knuckles. “You are too sweet,” he said, fondly. “Absolutely. I expect you to call me the moment you can tear yourself away from the flower shop.”
She smiled and could feel herself blushing a little. “I will. Or... here.” She started to dig in her purse, distracted for a moment until she pulled out a card for the shop and a pen, scrawling her cell phone number on the back of it. “Here,” she repeated, “You can call too if you want. Otherwise the flowers might never let me go.” She held it out to him with another smile, her cheeks still warm.
He took the card. “I’ll try to convince them to give you a leave from their service,” he said, smiling. “Have a good night, Laura.”
She smiled again and nodded, turning toward the door, then turning back again to give an awkward little wave. “G’night Jack. Thank you for the... everything.” With another smile, she headed for the door and up the stairs to her apartment.