Ignoring Coffee

Alan Moriarty
He had invited her to coffee, to specifically ignore their coffee and seem like an engaging couple of people who are interested in talking to each other and, therefore, interesting to other people who may want to engage with them. He'd done her a service, didn't sit with his back tot he wall, but rather, sat with his back tot he door as he read over a newspaper some other patron left.

His prius is parallel parked out front with the kind of precision that only came from years of meticulous practice. He has nothing but time now, you see. He was nothing but time to worry about things like if he is betweent he lines on his space or what the coffee house smells like when he deigns to smell them. he has years to read article after article and watch as people tick their short, boring lives away caring about things that don't truly matter but matter to people who aren't going to see the centuries turn by.

Donald Trump said something stupid again. It would be laughable if it weren't so sad.

Alan turns the page, frowns because it feels good to frown at things. Doesn't much agree with the man or his awful hair. Oh, how horrible would it be to be stuck for eternity with that hair. Alan is an attractive man, albeit a little pale. Albeit cold, but his hair is cut neat and he's got on a sweater and a tee shirt underneath it. Sweater's thin and soft. The jeans are expensive, the shoes are comfortable. Tells people he's always cold, always has been. Turns the page again, heaves a false sigh.

Puts the paper down to look in the glass in front of him. Looks at the reflection of the door. Waits for Verna.

His coffee is getting cold.

Verna Gardner
People from the Community at Large are calling her. Well, okay, at least Alan is. That means something to Verna, she with the dire need for allies -- or at least people who would be a little better than indifferent to see her gone. She doesn't know how much Alan being on her side might get her, but anything is better than nothing. Being seen as more than a reclusive shut-in is better than nothing.

When he calls her, she lets it ring a few times, because she doesn't want to come across as desperate or anything. And then, agrees to go buy coffee with him.

Verna cannot parallel park perfectly. Note that this is not due to a lack of trying, or a lack of caring. She has been known to get out of the car and critique her work multiple times until she is satisfied. But, she's never quite perfect. Call it a lack of spatial awareness, whatever. She picks a 'good' space, one where she'll have to walk a bit, but one where her car won't be stuck in it diagonally.

Her boots crunch on the pavement -- the very boots she was wearing when she died. When they wear out at last, they'll be the last thing she has left to remind her of who she used to be. No one will tell her what happened to her old possessions. Maybe it's better that way.

She walks into the place, smooths out her hair (which was already smooth) and glances around for Alan, whom she doesn't spot with his back to the door, and marches up to the counter.

"Hello, yes, I would like a short cafe latte with soy milk please?" A smile at the cashier, who is unimpressed and tired. Well, if you're in the service industry and you can't smile... Somebody's not getting a tip.

Alan Moriarty
He hears a voice, and it plays on his senses. Sticks to his brain and his lips upturn. He abandons the newspaper, and not so much saunters as he does stride. Alan walks with confidence among mortals, because he has to exude confidence. He is more at home with kine than his own people, if only because he is a god among men here. He has weight, has pull.

Let it be said that he likes having pull. Likes throwing the weight he has around, but Alan's been slender for a long time.

"Watching your calories?" he says, grin bright on his pale face. Steps to her side like he was meant to be there, as though they were just part of a matched set, "shouldn't have to, you look fantastic."

Cheesy grin.

"It's a wonder you put up with me with lines like that."

Verna Gardner
"Oh! Alan. There you are. I didn't see you," she says, trying to inject her voice with some kind of vitality, something that doesn't sound as dead as she feels.

"I like soy milk. It's better, um..." It was better. To her, anyway. "In coffee." Twitch of a smile. Toss of the hair. Shrugs at him when he says he doesn't know why he puts up with her. "At least it was a compliment. Not like the latest in pick-up lines where they try to insult you."

It doesn't take too long for her coffee to come out, it's not some complicated contraption with caramel and froth that might make her truly upset at the fact that she can't drink it. She pays. Doesn't tip. Takes her little cup in hand.

Alan Moriarty
"I do have terrible taste, though. Full milk in mine, next time I may have to try soy," he tells her, continues along to their table because he walks so comfortable, Strides, and by walking with Verna seems to give her permission to stride. Give her the impetus to take up space because she can take up space.

He gives her the benefit of being able to see the room. He's generous like that.

Alan starts to fold up his newspaper and put it away in the seat next to him. He doesn't wear a coat today, but his coffee isn't steaming anymore. Pushes up his sleeves and thinks for a moment, "been getting along alright?"

Verna Gardner
Verna doesn't take up much space, by dint of nature. She's small. Even her hair won't go big for her. She doesn't stride through the place like she owns it, she just tries not to be noticed.

It's a thing this Ventrue is going to have to learn not to do.

Tonight, she's got on a black pencil skirt and a blouse that's blue and ruffled and sort-of fits her. Someone else bought it for her.

She sits across from him at the small table, sets her coffee on on it. When he asks if she's been getting along alright, she gives him a little shaky smile. "I'm still here," she says, shrugs with a smile. It's just a joke, right?

Alan Moriarty
"Was hoping it would be genuine, just a need for confirmation," he said, watched her. He doesn't need to blink anymore, but there's always the reminder that it has to happen. It's a little offsettling to talk to someone who is so keyed in, so intent. People need to blink.

There's so many things you do to falsify humanity.

"I know it's been pretty rough, but you seem a little more sure of yourself."

Verna Gardner
"What's genuine? What are you needing to confirm?" she asks, lifting her cup up to smell it, making a crinkled-nose expression at it. It goes back onto the table.

"The coffee here is terrible. They let the milk curdle."

There, an excuse to leave it be. Still, it doesn't smell as bad as she claimed. He says that she's looking a bit more sure of herself. Maybe it's just that she's getting better at pretending? Or maybe she's just more comfortable around him now.

Verna Gardner
[It was a joke!]

Alan Moriarty
What's genuine? What are you needing to confirm?
"That you're still here, and not, you know, floating off into space, being terribly worried about the impermanence of being permanent. I hate making friends only to find them wandering off into the non literal sunset."

Or the literal sunset in Verna's case. He doesn't know how much trouble she could be in.

"Ugh. I do not miss curdled milk," he said, stirred his coffee with a look of disdain, "have any places you want to frequent? Any new gallery openings in mind? Trying to keep my fingers on the pulse of cocktail parties but they're always awkward."


Verna Gardner
He says his line about the non-literal sunset, and she looks away, grimmaces at somebody currently peering into their laptop, oblivious. It's either that, or stare into Alan's eyes with a vacant, scared expression. She knows, at least, to try to hide it.

"Soy milk is easy to curdle. That's how I test a coffee shop. If they can make a good soy cafe latte, it's a decent place," she says, recovering. There's a twitch of a smile again. Verna's always been a bit... choosy, hasn't she?

She sticks to decent people now.

"Places? I have a list," she says. A list of places she's allowed to go. Places David has said yes to, or has taken her to in the past. He says there are other places she is not allowed to go. Mostly, he worries about the Sabbat, but there are others. She is never allowed to go back to the University again, nor to her apartment. There are rules. She follows them.

"No gallery openings coming up soon. But there is a chamber orchestra playing tomorrow night."

Alan Moriarty
"Do you plan on going?" he asks. Conversational, conspiratorial. Ohhh, weould she go? Would she venture out into the world? Darling, daring Verna- would she brave the wild younder and take in culture  and have a taste for whatever she so chooses. Wonders if she's got her sea legs yet.

But she's nervous, and he can tell. Takes in how she was choosy with her coffee with an amused grin, one that hasn't quite come off his face for too long, that changes to a smile because he's confident. He's easy, he knows how to say things and what he is doing. Alan owns where he is, owns where he is going.

Nowhere, that is. He's going nowhere and he knows it.

"Holidays are pretty nice, you can sneak in to office Christmas parties for stock brokers or New Years Eve parties. Actually enjoy the fireworks after," a genuine smile at that. A genuine like, it would seem, for fireworks. For the tiniest bits of color and light

Verna Gardner
"I do plan on going. It sounds delightful," she says, but there is no indication to her tone of voice that suggests that she'll actually find it so.

Mmm. If she makes it to 2016, she'll have to remember that bit about the parties.

"Last New Year's, somebody broke into my house and destroyed all my breakable things. I hope this year it goes a bit better," she says, with a wry smile. Because look -- if somebody tries that again, somebody is an idiot.



Alan Moriarty
"Do you want new breakables? I'm pretty sure I must have a box full of snow globes or something."

... oh my god, was he serious?

Verna Gardner
Her hand comes up to her mouth, and she looks Alan up and down, like she might be stifling a giggle. Actually, Alan, she has no breakables of her own right now, because nothing belongs to her anymore.

"Snow globes? I didn't have any. Just some blown glass. I liked collecting glass."

There's sadness in her voice, despite what may have passed for an attempt at a chuckle. The world hasn't been kind to poor Verna, no it hasn't.

Alan Moriarty
"Well," he says, and there is a smile. It's a genuine smile, because he remembers. He remembers what it was like to be murdered. He remembered what it was like to be fumbling with the world around him and feeling like the world was coming apart. He leaves the coffee where it is, offers her a hand.

Smiles that smile that was only for her, has a different feeling when he isn't flexing his might against the world.

"Let's go get some. I know an antique shop that's open late and it occasionally has some rather nice glass pieces."

A second.

"No strings." A bold statement for a man slipping in his compassions- no boon required. Just a kindness for someone he wanted to call a friend at some point.

Verna Gardner
She takes his hand, lets him help her up from the table. She doesn't quite yet know what he's doing, until he offers to get her some new pretty things. And there, she smiles at him -- not twitchy or sad. Yes, let's do that.

"Okay. Sure," she says. "That sounds lovely."

And it does, really. Does he value her presence so much as to buy her gifts? Not a bad thing, that. If he'd do that, he might speak on her behalf, if it came to it.

Alan Moriarty
His hands are cold, let's make no mistake. He blinks far too infrequently, but he has a smile that makes so many promises. That could give someone the world if he wasn't too busy having it for himself, because Alan was a selfish creature. Because Alan had always been a selfish creature, but...

Sometimes, perhaps there is altruism. Except, it was not altruism right now. His reasons for taking her out was entirely something that resided only in his mind. Perhaps he needed tokeep her happy, keep her placated because Verna helped him hunt. Mananged to keep him from having to explain to the right and respectable people they found that he might need to cut them to get what he needs or that they'd feel the press of very human teeth against their neck.

Perhaps he wanted to go out and buy something for Verna because he wanted to do something for someone who might actually appreciate it.

Perhaps, just perhaps, he remembered what it was like to have nothing. To have to rebuild. Perhaps he remembered hating the taste of every drop of blood that came across his lips because none of it tasted right and he merely learned to tolerate whatever he could find. He might speak on her behalf, but his word was worth nothing save to the people on the street, the very basic level of people who were too young to understand how much standing he didn't have.

Alan liked feeling like someone's equal; there was no perhaps.

And so they left into the night, to keep an antique shop open for another hour because Alan batted his eyelashes at the owner and charmed her into keeping it open an extra hour for just them. Might grab a snack later when he an Verna part. Until then, there were glass baubles to be found.