James T. Kirk, Captain of the starship Enterprise (captcasanova) wrote in wariscoming, @ 2013-10-29 14:48:00 |
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Entry tags: | james kirk |
Who: James Kirk & NPC girl
What: Kirk gets someone's number and a date
Where: Diner that he frequents (the one where Jesse showed up unexpectedly)
When: Noon, 10/29/13
Warnings: None
Status: Complete
If there was one thing he knew well, it was that he could be a major screw-up. It was kind of his forte, he reasoned. He'd screwed up often enough in his life for him to know he did it really really well. He had uncanny luck and a whole lot of charm to get himself out of it, but it didn't work every time. The whole thing with Ginger had proved that well enough. He'd screwed that up and then made everything a million times worse by being a douchebag over it. It had all been his own fault and he'd blamed everyone else for it. If it hadn't been for Lydia he probably would have just stayed in San Francisco, small explosions around the city be damned. It was almost as though what Lydia had to say was hammered into his head with a jackhammer until he realized that not everyone in town hated him, and there were people willing to give him a second chance. The apology was the start; the conscious attempt not to slip back into douchebag territory was a work in progress, but it seemed to be going better than he had hoped. He had people he would actually call friends now. he was sociable again. And he had to admit, he'd kind of missed it a lot.
Mostly he was just paying attention to the displaced and the people he met at work. The world at large was kind of not being dealt with that much, because there was so much he felt he needed to do for the people who were in the same predicament he was. He'd been stupid and stingy with what he could do; the explosions shook that out of him. It felt good to help people again, to be the kind of guy that people looked up to again. He wasn't walking around with a chip on his shoulder anymore and that was a pretty good way to live. If he wasn't helping one person he was trying to help someone else. One day he might spread himself too thin, but he felt he could manage well enough.
Aside from the Roadhouse the only place he frequented that wasn't full of the displaced was the diner he liked off the main street. He went in at least once a day, sometimes for breakfast, sometimes for lunch. He usually made dinner at home or had something at work, so he got to see a lot of the morning waitresses and some of the other regulars. He was on a first name basis with two of the waitresses, Hannah and Beth. Hannah mothered him, and considering she was old enough to actually be his mother he supposed he didn't mind too much. It was nice to have someone fuss over him, tell him he needed to eat more, slip a slice of pie in with his takeout orders. He liked Hannah a lot.
Beth was somewhere around his own age. Usually she was the one who took his order and brought out his food when he showed up for lunch. Sometimes he would chat with her, sometimes she was just too busy. She was a grad student, working on something that dealt with her communications major. She'd moved to Lawrence from Los Angeles, following a boyfriend who got accepted to the University of Kansas. He'd dropped out, both out of the relationship and out of school, but she'd made a home for herself here. The craziness of the city and the people who looked like celebrities didn't seem to bother her much. She always had something nice to say to him, always paid him a little bit of extra attention. That was pretty nice too.
Today she'd come in to get her weekly paycheck just as he arrived, and he invited her to join him for lunch. He had to admit, she looked really nice out of her uniform. He had never really been the type of guy to have a type outside of attractive, and she definitely fit into that type. He hadn't planned on flirting, not really. He was just being charming. Just being how he had been before he ended up here, before his life had gone off the rails for a bit. He found he hadn't grinned this much in a while, hadn't laughed so hard in a long time. It was nice.
After an hour she looked at her watch. "Oh, crap. I have to go. I have to meet my adviser in an hour." She gave him a grin. "We should do this again sometime."
"Yeah, we should," he said with a nod.
She grinned a bit wider, then dug around in her purse for a pen. "Give me your hand," she said when she found one.
"I do have a phone, you know," he said, chuckling slightly as he extended his hand. "I can just put your number in there."
"It's more fun this way." She grasped his hand and wrote her name and a phone number on it. "Program this in when I leave and then text me so I have yours."
"Let me have your pen," he said.
"Going to write on my hand?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.
"I'm going to go the classic 'write your number on a napkin' route," he replied, taking the pen from her. He pulled a napkin out of the holder and jotted down his number, then handed it to her. "I'll text you anyway, though."
"Hey, are you free tonight?" she asked, folding the napkin and putting it in her purse.
"Yeah, unless someone needs my help. Why?"
"I was going to go see that Carrie remake," she said as she stood up. "Or that creepy one. The Insiduous sequel? And it's not as much fun going to a movie by myself. Want to join me?"
He nodded. "Yeah. Want to meet at the theater?"
"Sure. Just make sure you text me so I can give you a time. And who knows? Maybe I'll let you buy me a drink afterwards." She slung her purse on her shoulder. "See you later, James."
"See ya," he said, watching her give him a final wave before leaving. He looked at his hand and then reached for his phone. This could prove to be an interesting night.