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Rapunzel ([info]obscurityfalls) wrote in [info]paxletalelogs,
@ 2011-10-12 00:10:00

Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Entry tags:loki, nephthys

Lies a body just oozin' life
Who: Richard and Vanessa
What: Powers Backfire in interesting ways
Where: The Road
When: October 12, 2011
Warnings: None yet


Vanessa had been feeling strange for pretty much the entire month of October so far . She still had the night terrors, just about every other night, and it was the same dream every single night. She was chased, she ran, and her throat was slit. Every so often the dream would change a bit, and Vanessa would make it inside someone's apartment, begging for help, but it always ended the same way no matter what minor details changed. You would think a week of having the dream would make her used to it, that it would begin to not phase her, but she still woke up with a start and she still felt the pain of the blade being ran across her throat. Still half asleep, Vanessa had gotten to the salon that morning and had a shock when she looked in the mirror, her hair was pin straight. She didn't remember straightening it that morning, and she could've sworn that she had only quickly dried it. However, there was pretty obvious evidence in the mirror in front of her. Naturally curly hair just didn't magically become pin straight overnight. She hadn't slept that well last night due to the night terror, and she must've just straightened it without realizing. Weird. Vanessa only hoped that in her sleep stupor she remembered to turn the straightener OFF.

Vanessa was driving home from an early shift at Muldoons. It hadn't been all that lucrative of an evening, and since Vanessa had a rather lucrative and crazy day at the hair salon, she had offered to go home early so others could make some money. Of course the fact that she hadn't slept very well the night before was another rather large factor, one she had kept to herself. As Vanessa drove, she suddenly noticed a billboard for a diamond necklace, as she admired the piece of jewelery, she realized that the billboard was much further down than she should've been able to see. Vanessa squinted a bit as she drove, seeing details in trees next to the billboard. She noticed that one of her favorite pizza places had a for sale sign on it, and was able to tell from an extreme distance exactly what shade of red they had used on the homemade for sale sign. Funny though, she suddenly wasn't able to see very close up. She ran right through a traffic light, unsure if it had been green, yellow or red. What was going on?


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[info]atrickstertype
2011-10-12 04:58 am UTC (link)
Richard had dreamed that he was a fish.

From what he remembered, being a fish was a quiet life. You swam, you ate, you drifted near the bottom of the river if you needed to rest. There wasn't much room in a fish's brain for anything other than that, and the occasional desperate all-encompassing need to swim up stream. He had been in the middle of one of those when he had gotten caught in something, something taut across his path, and hauled up into the light. He was gasping, changing as fast as he could, but there were hands coming in to hold him down, and the net caught at him, and there was something around his wrists... and that was when he woke up, soaked in sweat, with two days growth worth of beard and a clock screeching that he had slept in far too long. There was a dinner planned for the senior board of Pacific Life tonight, one that he expected to go rather late, and he had meant to take a nap before he went. Now he would be lucky to make it on time at all. He dressed in a hurry, gave up on the hope of calling a taxi, and dashed out to the truck instead. It was ugly, huge, and what he did with it could only be called driving if you were being very charitable, but it would get him there in time. Probably.

He pulled out onto the street, just barely managing the clutch, and headed down towards the main road that got him to work. It was a small intersection, although one with a left turn light, and so he didn't think anything of flicking his signal and gliding right through when he saw the light was green. Except that there was a car barreling right towards him, seemingly unaware that it had a red light. He leaned on his horn and slammed the brakes, which caught- and then came loose with a hiss of air. "Swina bqllr!" he swore, as his truck bore down on the little green car.

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[info]obscurityfalls
2011-10-13 02:03 pm UTC (link)
Vanessa's vision returned just in time, just in time to see a rather large truck bearing down onto her tiny green sedan. Embarrassingly, Vanessa's instinct was to slam down on her brakes and close her eyes, not wanting to watch what was about to happen. Terrified, Vanessa opened her eyes after the accident was over and it was obvious that she was alive. People tell you that in cases like this, your life is supposed to flash before your eyes. Nothing flashed before Vanessa's eyes, all she felt was pure panic and a desperate feeling that her own life was being taken from her in so many ways, and it was getting old. Luckily, in the commotion of everything, she had swerved her car without realizing it, and the brunt of the damage was done in the back seat of the driver's side, it could've been a LOT worse and as Vanessa exited her car she couldn't help but imagine what could've been. If the car hadn't swerved, the truck would've hit her, smashing the side of her car, possibly killing her. That was not exactly a pleasant thought, and she suddenly didn't care that she was out of a car, she was focused on the fact that she could've died, and it was entirely her fault. For a moment, she entirely forgot that there was another party in this accident.

Shaking herself out of it, Vanessa turned and walked to the truck that had hit her, seeing who it was. "I am SO SO SO SO sorry, I just didn't see...Oh it's you! Are you okay???"

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[info]atrickstertype
2011-10-16 06:28 pm UTC (link)
Richard tried to turn as the car swerved, but his truck slammed into the rear driver's side, sending the smaller vehicle spinning. After that, things blurred together. He felt the tension in his hands as he grabbed the wheel tight and slammed down on the brakes again. This time they locked, and he gasped as the truck jerked beneath him, grinding to a stop. When time started operating under its usual rules again, he was parked in the middle of the street, cutting off both lanes. It was hard to care. He fumbled with the seatbelt and practically fell out of his door, pure adrenaline making it hard to focus.

He hadn't even moved from that position, half-hunched over by his cab, when Vanessa came up to him. When she started speaking, he looked up at her with a bitter thrill of rage, hands clenching. "What the... That was you? I could have KILLED you, Vanessa." He looked up, suddenly aware of how close the nose of his car was to a nearby utility pole. "I could have killed ME. WHAT THE HELL were you thinking?"

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[info]obscurityfalls
2011-10-16 08:51 pm UTC (link)
Vanessa was one strong cookie, and probably the last person that would just start crying in the middle of a street, but there she was, trying to fight back the tears. She could count on one hand the amount of times she had let herself cry in public as an adult. The first time she was restocking a bar in New York. Vanessa had been given the keys to that bar, and was pretty much the unofficially head bartender. She had trained everyone and was given full liquor room access. One night she was doing inventory with her manager Tom, and a volunteer. The volunteer was a new girl that had only been working there a few weeks, and had volunteered basically to suck up. It would've been a smart move if the girl hadn't dropped a bottle of yellow tail pinot noir on Vanessa's head. Vanessa had been crouched down, counting bottled of budweiser when the girl was trying to reach the wine bottles up top, standing on a shaky case of bottled water instead of using the step stool. Down flew the bottle of wine, and it smashed right on Vanessa. She had definitely cried that day.

The second time she had cried in public was at her divorce proceedings, and then she had just been an emotional wreck. It was understandable given that her husband's 18 year old mistress was there in court with them. However, beyond those two times, she held herself together no matter what. A combination of lack of sleep, the nightmares, and the overall feeling that she just wasn't herself lately was too much to handle on its own, throw in a near death experience, and Vanessa lost it, now clearly crying. "Richard I couldn't SEE, I don't know what happened, but you have to believe me that all of a sudden I just couldn't see a THING close up. Between that at the night terrors nearly every night I think I'm losing it." And what was worse is that she was now crying to a man who she had been totally trying to score a date with, there went that.

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[info]atrickstertype
2011-10-18 05:38 pm UTC (link)
Usually, the sight of a crying woman was enough to get Richard to shut up, stop whatever he was doing, and go straight into damage control. For that matter, so was the sight of a crying man. Tears meant that something had gone very wrong, that he had lost control of a situation in the worst possible way. They also reminded him of his mother. The best possible response was to make them stop as soon as possible.

Now, seeing Vanessa's face wet in the lights of the road, they just made him even more angry and almost disgusted. He remembered (was it a memory? A dream?) crying tears that burned his cheeks and temples from eyes that felt as though they were being hollowed out. It was almost a sense memory, the pain in his eyes, and he realized that it was probably the beginnings of a migraine. That was the only thing that made sense, much more sense than whatever she had just said about night terrors. And wasn't that just exactly what he needed right then.

He turned to look at the crumpled hood of the truck, the mangled rear of her car, and the rage just boiled out of him. "You couldn't SEE? Well, that's EVIDENT, isn't it? And don't try to excuse yourself!!" He pointed at her accusingly. "You ran that light like it wasn't there. The only way a nightmare could have anything to do with it is if you were asleep at the wheel, which wouldn't surprise me!" He spun away, looking at his watch. "Shit, I do not have time for this!" He stepped away, pulling out his cellphone. He was going to have to call work to apologize for missing the meeting and explain that he would miss tomorrow, and possibly the day after. And the cops, he would need to call them too.

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[info]obscurityfalls
2011-10-18 08:19 pm UTC (link)
As Richard exploded, Vanessa listened. Something in her snapped the more he began to yell and shout. Her tears stopped, and she calmly rubbed the leaky mascara out from under her eyes. It was an accident, and accidents happen, and something changed in her, Vanessa went from crying and absolutely losing it, to a slow acceptance and calm, as if things like this simply happened all the time. It was as if she had experienced the combination of a chaotic situation like this and his anger a million times before, there was a definite familiarity to the situation. She actually found herself fighting a roll of the eyes. Something about this was very, very familiar.

She calmly went to her car and pulled out her cell phone as well as a tear away insurance card, the kind you have ready in your glove compartment in case such an accident occurred, funny though, Vanessa normally would've been too flustered to think of that. She shoved the card into Richard's hands. "Listen, I assume that you're calling the police, but we can settle this without them. I have good insurance, it will cover everything, but the truth is, your car will be declared totalled, leaving you out of a car, where as mine will be fixed. The accident is clearly my fault, and I was just about to sell my car anyway. Let's fix this whole situation between us. I will call a tow truck and get your car taken back to Pax. In the meantime, I bet my car still runs, and I will take you to wherever you're going. I will fix my car, and transfer it over to you. I was just about to sell it anyway, I can take public transportation to both jobs and save money on gas. That or you can stand here and FREAK OUT on me, getting nothing but a totaled car and a very, very angry woman who knows where you live."

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[info]atrickstertype
2011-10-20 05:56 am UTC (link)
Richard stared at Vanessa, frozen in the middle of dialing a number, as she let go of a truly impressive tirade. Whatever had changed in her (and something had changed, you only had to look at her face to realize that) had completely switched her over from a useless, crying heap to a lady with a plan. He could respect that. It wasn't that he stopped being angry, exactly, but more that he stored it away, somehow, with all the rest of his rage. (Wait, he had rage?) Exploding wasn't doing this situation any good. By the time she was done talking, he had leaned back against the metal of the truck and was giving her an appraising look. Of all the people to have a hidden strong side.

So when she held out the card he pushed away the quiet, insistent feeling in his gut that this was wrong that he should for some reason feel bad about something, and took it. "I... you're right. We don't have to call anybody. Except the tow truck. And my job. I'm not going to ask you to drive me anywhere, and I honestly doubt I'll make it in tomorrow. Things like this," he waved his hand around a little, "give me a headache." He massaged his eyes, then shot her another look. There were two ways to play this. One would end up with an irate neighbor and (he looked over) a fairly shit car. The other... well.

"Keep the car," he said, shaking his head. "I was out of line. You're not the first person to run a red light, and my truck isn't worth half of your car. Got it to move here, remember?" He manufactured and offered up a small smile. "I'll take your insurance info, and you can have mine. What there is of it."

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[info]obscurityfalls
2011-10-21 01:27 am UTC (link)
"I'm going to call the tow truck while you call work and I try to move my car to the side of the road, out of the way." As Vanessa did so, she couldn't help but realize that something about this entire situation was incredibly odd. Forget that Vanessa had been able to see abnormally far away, and that everything up close had become so blurry she couldn't see, but now Richard had calmed down just as quickly as she had. He had gone from boiling rage, to the relaxed Richard she had gotten to know as she helped him move. As she stood there, part of her was a little disappointed that it had been so easy to work through his rage, yet she somehow knew that she had only seen the surface of Richard. Normally she would run so far and so quickly from this man, big bright neon warning bells with lights would be going off inside her head now, but instead it intrigued her somehow, and she definitely wanted to get to know him better. There was something about this that was so very familiar, yet completely new.

Her car moved to the side of the road, an a tow truck on its way, Vanessa went back up to Richard. "Since you won't be making it to work tomorrow anyway, let me try to make it up to you. We coul go back to my apartment, order out and drink the Francis Ford Coppola wine I have sitting in my cabinet, or we could go out, my treat."

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[info]atrickstertype
2011-10-23 08:54 pm UTC (link)
As Vanessa took care of her car, Richard approached the truck to do the same. The front end was an unsightly, crumpled mess, but when he turned the key the engine still turned over. He tested the brakes. And again. Strange, nothing seemed wrong there. Why had they failed on him, then? If they had caught, he might have missed Vanessa's car entirely, and this whole situation would have been much easier. He pushed the thought aside, waved at an oncoming car, threw the truck into first, and edged his way into a nearby parking lot. Safely there, he parked and turned the truck off, before stepping out of the cab. There was a trail of dark fluid leading down to the site of the wreck. So much for the truck, then. He made the call to his work, fabricating a slight note of shaken determination as he talked to his boss. He would be fine, might have to see about stitches but they weren't likely, the car was completely totaled, the other person involved was in tears, there might be some after effects. Could he come in on Friday? The older man lapped it up, and Richard ended the conversation with an assurance that Friday he would make up all the work he had missed, even if it meant unpaid overtime.

Standing there, his attention wandered to Vanessa. The detachment he had created between himself and the accident was still there, replacing his anger with a vague curiosity. There was something off about her. He had been almost sure that he had gotten a good read on her while he was moving in, and his impression of her personality hadn't involved the ability to lay down ultimatums and turn off her tears like a faucet. But, as she returned and asked her question, he was reassured that the rest of what he had guessed was still true. This could still turn out well.

He raised an eyebrow and joked in a quiet voice, "Cause an accident, then invite me up to the room for drinks...Is this how you treat all the men you meet, or am I just very lucky?" Then again, he was already dressed for a nice dinner. His arms crossed and added, "Take it from me, there are much easier ways to ask a man out on a date."

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[info]obscurityfalls
2011-10-23 09:38 pm UTC (link)
Vanessa laughed and shrugged her shoulders slightly at Richard's joke. It wasn't exactly the best time to ask him out on a date, and after his display of rage, she imagined that most women wouldn't exactly still be wanting a night out on the town with him, good looking or not. However, Vanessa clearly wasn't like other women, especially when part of Nephthys's personality was clearly coming out to play. Vanessa of course had no idea what was going on, and blamed her flare and differences in emotion on the lack of sleep. How was she supposed to know the truth? The truth was that in her panic after the accident, her guard had been lowered far too much, allowing Nephthys to slip in a little of her personality, which was far more exciting than a simple mysterious straightening of the hair.

"Well, what do you say?" She certainly wasn't dressed for a good night out on the town, but she had her clothes she wore to the salon in her car, and she could easily change.

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[info]atrickstertype
2011-10-23 11:44 pm UTC (link)
"How could I say no?" This whole thing felt strange, but it wasn't enough to make him step back. If he was going to spend all of tomorrow buried under a pillow and waiting for his head to finish exploding, then he might as well have fun tonight. It occurred to him that he would usually feel at least a little bit of guilt at yelling at Vanessa, and at using her as a free meal ticket, but the thought seemed unimportant and was easily dismissed. As was the truck. And just about everything else.

"Let's have dinner first, and see how it goes from there. I warn you though, I'm going to make up for part of the damages with a really nice steak." He pointed over his shoulder at the leaking remains of his truck.

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[info]obscurityfalls
2011-10-24 12:46 am UTC (link)
Vanessa looked at Richard's truck and couldn't help but grin. "I would say that truck might be worth a hamburger at best, but maybe your charming personality will win you that steak and lobster dinner after all, you never know." She smiled as the tow truck came pulling up behind the two of them on the side of the road. Again Vanessa took charge, but since things have calmed down, this wasn't entirely unlike her at all. "You go talk to the tow truck, get anything you need from it and find out what garage it is being taken to and I'll change into what I wore to the salon and not this dreadful Muldoons outfit."

On this day Vanessa had to go right to Muldoons from the hair salon, and since she couldn't dress in scrubs at the salon that charged $80 for a haircut, she had to master the art of layering and changing at stop lights. It had just become a part of life. She headed back to her car and took off the black tee-shirt she was wearing, revealing a tight tank top underneath. She put on a vintage style 1950's dress over her head. It was a white high necked dress with a green paisley pattern. Once she had the dress on, she slipped out of the black simple skirt she had on, throwing the Muldoons clothes in the back of her car.

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[info]atrickstertype
2011-10-25 08:21 pm UTC (link)
Richard was going to say something about the fickle nature of a woman who first offered him a working car and then dialed it back all the way to a burger, but the tow truck's arrival cut him off. As Vanessa stalked away to deal with her car, Richard shook his head in wonder. What the hell was he getting himself into?

Dealing with the tow truck was the work of a few minutes. There was nothing in his truck other than the remains of a few quick road meals that he hadn't cleaned up yet, so it was really just a matter of talking to the driver of the tow. He got the name and info of the lot that he was being hauled to and dismissed the driver out of hand. Continuing the conversation was no longer important. It probably seemed more than a little rude, but Richard couldn't quite bring himself to care.

By the time he turned back, Vanessa was already throwing her clothes into the trunk of her car. She was probably just lucky that the trunk still opened, he thought. The dress was nice, though, and it complemented her new haircut. He stroked his beard (Why did he have a beard? He HATED beards.) and considered the list of restaurants he knew in town. A burger was definitely not going to cut it.

That was his thought as he strode back across the street to her. "Maybe we should drop this" here he motioned at the car itself, "back at the Pax and take a taxi," he said, meeting her eyes. "You may have a bent axle. There's no point in having two near-death experiences in one night."

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[info]obscurityfalls
2011-10-25 11:09 pm UTC (link)
Vanessa had of course been kidding about the hamburger comment, but she wondered if Richard knew that she had been kidding. She probably shouldn't have made such a joke so soon because after all, who wouldn't be sensitive after losing their car, as horrible as it might be. Oh well, there was no point in back peddling now. Vanessa looked at her car and nodded. She hated to think that she needed work done on the car, because the car really wasn't worth keeping, let alone fixing. She looked at the car again, wondering what an axle was and how much money that would be to fix. "You're right. There's no point in taking any needless risks." What an odd, odd night. This would be her first date in Newport, leave it to Vanessa to have it start with a near death experience.

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[info]atrickstertype
2011-10-26 04:38 am UTC (link)
"Well" Richard shrugged, amending their statments, "there's always some point in taking risks." He met her eyes, grinning in the light of the streetlamps. "I mean, it's all..."

And just like that, between one word and the next, the overwhelming strangeness of what had just happened hit him. The explosion, the weird emotions, the beard... WHY did he have a beard? Why had he been so nonchalant about the truck? And Vanessa... He turned to her, a look of real horror on his face. "Vanessa, I, I'm really sorry. About all of this. Your car, yelling at you like that... I don't know what came over me." Was she really about to take him out on a date? Was he really about to LET someone take him out on a date?

Stress. It had to be the stress. Or maybe he was just going crazy.

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[info]obscurityfalls
2011-10-26 04:52 am UTC (link)
"Well sure, you have to take some risks in life, I mean, life's boring without them." Vanessa smiled as she listened to Richard and his apology. Really, there was no reason for him to be apologizing, his reaction had seemed perfectly reasonable at the time, and she had reacted accordingly. However, the more she thought about her reaction, the stranger it seemed. She wasn't exactly the type to be able to turn off her emotions so easily, and that was exactly what she had done. She had gotten so calm and collected; she had even suggested that he take her car!! She needed that car and certainly didn't want to be taking a bus to two jobs back and forth! No way! Vanessa got in her car, making sure the door was unlocked for Richard. "Don't be sorry. To be honest, I don't know what came over me. If you want a rain check on the steaks just let me know, tonight was rather crazy. We can eat pizza and drink beer in our pajamas."

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[info]atrickstertype
2011-10-30 09:52 pm UTC (link)
"Pizza and beer does seem to be our thing, doesn't it?" Richard rubbed his face with his hands, taking the moment to think. Emotional swings. He could deal with those. His whole life had been built around dealing with those for a long time, though this couldn't be related to his mother's depression. It had to be a new symptom of the migraines. It had to be. The thought of facing the horror that she had dealt with every day terrified him in ways that the actual phenomena he was dealing with couldn't. He couldn't let that show, though. Not now, not to Vanessa, not while he was already in such a strange position.

Best to play along with her, then, and pretend that nothing was happening. He looked up from his hands and manufactured a smile. "Either way," he said, "Though I think wasting that outfit on a night at home would be a damn shame. I'm still willing to try a dinner and put this behind us if you are."

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[info]obscurityfalls
2011-10-30 10:19 pm UTC (link)
Once they were both in the car and buckled, Vanessa started her car, not at all liking the sound it instantly started to make. She reached into the glove compartment over Richard and pulled out her i-pod, hooking it up to the cassette adapter. She let it play on random and it instantly started to play Rolling Stone's Paint it Black. Vanessa listened to every type of music possible, but she especially liked classics her grandmother used to listen to when she was a little girl, like Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, etc. She was a bit grateful that one of those songs hadn't screamed out from the radio though. Vanessa smiled as she looked down at her dress and started to drive, heading back to Pax. "This old thing? It's just what I wore to the hair salon today, I've had it forever." Which was true, she only wore her imitation vintage to the hair salon, and only dresses she had for a little while, as beautiful as they might be. "Let's have dinner then, go out, we might as well."

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[info]atrickstertype
2011-10-30 10:40 pm UTC (link)
Oh, the Stones. Richard was almost amused at his own immediate reaction of relaxation as the familiar guitar line came out of the speakers. Mick was here, and everything was going to be okay. He ignored the clanking screech of the car, hoping it could get them the few blocks to the apartment building and nodded. "If you say so. I'd like to run upstairs really quickly and shave, though. Not a big fan of beards." He rubbed his own face, still a bit unsure about the stubble that had sprouted so quickly. Maybe whatever was happening to him was a hormonal imbalance? At any rate, he was not going to go anywhere decent with this growing on his face. "Any ideas for where we should go?"

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[info]obscurityfalls
2011-10-30 10:56 pm UTC (link)
"I have to admit that I'm usually not a big fan of beards, but it looks nice on you, rugged and suits you somehow, but I really can't imagine it would be comfortable in this California heat." Vanessa tried to think of some nice places she had heard about in town and thought of a few different ones with different cuisine styles, but one stuck out in her head. it had after all, been a very profitable day for her, and she didn't mind spending money on him to make up for what she had done. "Do you like seafood?"

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[info]atrickstertype
2011-11-03 03:55 am UTC (link)
"Uhm. Fish. I like fish. Not shellfish, though, so I'm not sure that counts." The beard was distracting him still, but he tried to forget about it as the car trundled closer to the Pax. A quick shave and he would be good as new. "Right now, I'm slightly more worried about whether the place has a well stocked bar," he quipped, feeling himself relax to the beat of Charlie Watts's drums. Dinner and drinks sounded nice, actually. Much better than sitting around the house and focusing on his woes. "I can't promise to be great company. Nights like this, I can get a little..." How to explain it without going into his migraines and their symptoms? "Cranky. It happens to the best of us, I guess."

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[info]obscurityfalls
2011-11-03 04:09 am UTC (link)
The more she thought about it, the more she wondered if she really wanted to have fish breath on a potential date, friendly or not. "Nevermind about the fish, I know of a place with good food and good drinks even though I've only been there once." As Vanessa drove, her i-pod shuffled to a Sammy Davis Jr. song, I've Gotta Be Me, and she found herself leaving the song on, even leaving the volume on the higher setting she had put it on for the Rolling Stones. Sammy drove them home, drowning out the frightening noises that her car was making. As she left her car and headed into Pax, she pulled out her cell phone to check the time. It wasn't nearly as late as she had thought it was.

"I'll meet you in the lobby in say fifteen minutes, and don't be worried about being a little cranky, because you're right, it happens."

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[info]atrickstertype
2011-11-05 05:35 am UTC (link)
"Thanks, Vanessa. I'll catch you there." As Richard ran up the stairs, he marveled at his luck. He could count on one hand the number of women who would put up with what he had done tonight. Whatever it had been. And now she was taking him to dinner. That- the whole 'being taken' angle, would have been awkward if it wasn't for Vanessa's attitude. As it was? Well, they'd see, wouldn't they?

He shaved quickly and thoroughly, feeling entirely too good about scraping the stubble off of his chin and neck. It was a good moment to pull himself together. On his way back out the door he stopped by the kitchen and poured himself a shot of rum. It wouldn't do to have another anger management moment in the middle of dinner, after all, and sometimes alcohol helped stave off the headaches for a couple of hours. Satisfied and fortified, he headed back down the stairs to the lobby. The plans for the night had changed somewhat, but dinner was still the main goal.

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[info]obscurityfalls
2011-11-05 02:52 pm UTC (link)
On her part, Vanessa touched up her hair and makeup, glad she had the chance to do so once she saw how much her mascara had run during her strange fit of tears. She had also had the insight to call a cab, telling them to try and be there in fifteen minutes, and to please not leave if they weren't out there right away. With cabs here that was easier said than done, that was one aspect she dearly missed about New York City, there had been a cab on every street corner, even in the boroughs. In fact, the more she thought about New York, the more she missed it, and she suddenly became more determined than ever to never leave Newport, not for some silly romantic trouble anyway.

After fifteen minutes had passed, Vanessa grabbed her purse and went downstairs to meet Richard, smiling his way. She peeked out the lobby door and saw the cab she had called, indeed waiting. "Well that's us!" Vanessa headed outside and into the cab, telling him the name of the restaurant and it's downtown address.

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[info]atrickstertype
2011-11-05 04:30 pm UTC (link)
The cab ride was shorter than Richard had expected, but still slightly awkward. He blamed that on the ride rather than either of them- he had never liked cabs, and this time he didn't even know how long they would be riding. So when they pulled up in front of a small Italian place called Cunetto's House of Pasta, he was slightly relieved. When he scrambled out of the car and took a good look at the restaurant, he was even a little excited. It had all the signs of being a great restaurant. Chief among those, at least in Richard's book, was the fact that it looked like a hole in the wall. If he had to guess, he would say that the building was probably a converted house with a tiny screened in porch added on, and the parking lot was not a lot more than the triangle where two streets met at an angle. It was also completely packed.

As he turned to help Vanessa out of the car, he smiled- the first genuine smile of the night. "Something tells me I'm going to like your taste, Vanessa. But I think we might have to wait a while for our seat."

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[info]obscurityfalls
2011-11-08 12:39 am UTC (link)
She smiled as he helped her out of the car, such a gentleman move. Something told Vanessa that this was going to be a fun night, and she was suddenly rather glad that their cars had run into each other, because it was turning into quite the pleasant surprise. "As long as there's a bar to grab drinks from, I never mind waiting." As they headed into the little Italian restaurant, Vanessa instantly fell in love with the place. Being partially Italian and having a family who was insanely proud of all of their heritage, she was dreading the tacky pictures of grapes and big fat men with black facial hair and chef hats. Instead there was a large mural of a gorgeous country side, that could have been anywhere in Europe. On the other walls were framed portraits of various Italian cities. That alone sold Vanessa. "Do you drink red wine?"

The night that continued was, to say the least, interesting. They hadn't waited that long for a table, only about half of a bottle of Merlot long. Dying for some good Italian food, Vanessa ordered eggplant parm. with a side dish of penne noodles, and she was anything but disappointed. Since they were taking a cab back to the apartment, Vanessa had made sure that their wine glasses were constantly filled, resulting in quite a drunk evening. By the time they had gotten to dessert, things had already gone well beyond interesting. Once or twice during the meal, Richard had started to dance on that borderline of terse and rude, but Vanessa didn't mind, not when it was few and far between. She insisted that she pay for the entire meal, and she ensured that exactly that would happen, by slipping the waiter her credit card as she went to the bathroom.

Way too much wine in her system, Vanessa offered a cup of coffee or even better, a final glass of wine, at her place. However neither of them made it passed a few sips from the wine she had pulled out from her cabinet. Instead the two engaged in more entertaining, more adult activities, which was quite a surprise to almost everyone.

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