tampered | [locked] i dare you not to quote cindy lauper

Entry tags:

[locked] i dare you not to quote cindy lauper

When; 20th May, evening/night
Rating; A for Alcohol
Characters; Mae Crawford (

brobeforehos) & Robert Chase (

intheblanks)
Summary; Chase is a girl, which apparently is exactly the missing ingredient to get Mae to invite him to a night out. (Warning for girly cocktails.)
Log;

She arrives later than she'd like, and not quite because of her work shift ending when it does - she's entitled to some free days, the Library being as whimsical in its staff's schedule as it is in its services in general, so she's taken this one off because the curse called for it. There was a crisis to solve at home with Clary, and afterwards a visit that she keeps trying to reason with even now.

But, half past eight or something close to it, she shows up at his work, making a beline for his office. If he's going to go dressed in his(her) scrubs, then she'll wear her work clothes too - which are, granted, not very different from her every day clothes, save for her T-shirt not sporting a clever line on it today. Such class, she knows.

Still with such class, she knocks before stepping in. "Hi, sorry I'm late."

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There may have been some experimenting with gender appropriate clothes earlier in the day - pants with buttons that fastened the wrong way round and shirts that floated rather than hung - but by this point Chase has firmly decided that familiarity trumps fashion and is sitting curled in his desk chair (suddenly far too big to simply sit in) in dark green scrub pants and a cotton top which, slightly more fitted than he'd like, still doesn't offer too much to distract him while typing.

He glances up to see Mae come in, then goes back to finish a line before spinning the chair her way.

"I bet you've been telling all the girls they're still pretty."

Very evil-mastermind of him. Or very busy doctor of him, she can't decide on which. While Chase finishes up typing, Mae leans against the doorway - jacket folded over her hands and hiding that she's twiddling her thumbs quite effectively - and tries not to fixate on details like 'he's short' and 'it's adorable'.

Him spinning in his chair has Mae finally stepping into the office. "Well, yes. But I've been telling men they're still pretty, too," she answers, her smile easy-going.

As long as it's not very toddler playing on dad's office furniture, he's fine with whatever option she picks. It's not just the height difference, being narrower takes more getting used to that might be expected. Everything in this office is positioned to accommodate his usual reach and span.

"One of my colleagues grew a beard. She'd probably appreciate the sentiment."

God knows he's been trying to figure out if he's still attracted to her all day.

She could teach him how to navigate with breasts, but she's sure Chase can figure that one out on his own - he seems the type to adapt pretty quickly to anything anatomical.

"My flatmate's been learning how to walk around with extra baggage," she supplies, barely hiding the smile because that had been an interesting and slightly amusing sight. "Unfortunately all my extra baggage is emotional, so I wasn't much help there."

Once she's reached his desk, she subtly checks what's on it, because she's curious to see his working space. God knows he's the first professional she's befriended in her life, respectable profession and all. Annabel would be ecstatic - until she learnt of the age difference, probably.

"So, on a scale of one to now, how much do you need a drink?"

He takes after House (in one of a few ways) - the desk is busy but not cluttered. A framed city map sits behind his computer screen, with a child's violin bow balanced carefully on top of the frame. Beside his computer there's what looks like a fossilised shark's tooth, mounted. A row of antique looking medical texts (one with a lego figure from a popular sci-fi series chilling out on the spine). Two in-trays, both overflowing, one topped with today's half-completed crossword.

There's a singular ping-pong paddle on the filing cabinet (don't ask him why) and a set of expensive looking cufflinks in the dent at the base of a silver anglepoise lamp.

A shower of biros, and a coffee mug, stained with regular use.

"I'd say around... twenty-three hours ago. Though if I need to work on your emotional baggage it might have to be stronger than I'd planned."

He has the drinking mostly under control, now. A far cry from when he showed up in the city, fresh from murder and divorce. Maybe other compulsions have replaced it, but they don't make his hands shake at work. It's something he's proud of, for now. Not to be so helplessly his mother's son.

"I've always thought emotional baggage was something you fixed if you wanted to, and on your own," she murmurs, draping her jacket over one arm and reaching out with the other to poke around. It's, unsurprisingly, the violin bow that catches her eye first. Then the crossword - she did that one after lunch.

"Your office is like Ask Me About This sign. I like it."

She's not stalling per se, she's making conversation. Drinking was something Mae indulged in at raves and parties, as was the wont of teenagers her age; she's changed some in the City, because now she only ever does it in company, and usually for good reasons. Not to drown out sorrows.

"A dozen new-age folksy types would tell you differently. Also a number of psychologists - but nobody really pays attention to those guys."

Chase stretches (unladylike, both arms splayed over his head much the way his legs are splayed in the chair to accommodate something that just isn't there today), and looks back across at his desk.

"You can ask me anything you want."

Not to say the reply will be an honest one. The desk is probably more personal (and better decorated) than the various apartments he keeps around the city. Most of the things are remnants of curses - the bow he found in his old apartment, not too long after returning to the city.

Edited 2013-05-26 21:14 (UTC)

"I don't," she answers honestly, and shrugs. She has a T-shirt at home that evokes something of the sort, but he'll probably possibly not see it. It's childish, sure, but Mae still believes in shirts with messages on them. Chase probably believes in suits.

Not that she's unappreciative of a good suit.

Not that it matters. She purses her lips a bit before lifting her shoulders in an I don't know gesture. "Why don't you offer something instead? It's too early to start with the game of 21 questions."

Chase believes in board shorts and not in psychologists. Help didn't help - one patient's summary of a police officer who couldn't handle using his gun - those words ring truer than all House's suggestions that he talk it out, back when some kind of panic disorder kept him from doing his job.

He didn't talk it out, he drank it down and now, for the most part, he pretends it never happened.

And the suits? Either bought for him or too big - though he's bulked out a little in the last six years, enough not to look like a kid playing dress up. Chase believes in sweater vests, and in colour combinations that would blind ordinary folk.

He picks up the tooth.

"Extraction. My first week in the city - I was taking work in a clinic in the underground."

See, he has damaged fashion sense, she has damaged fashion sense. They could be so happy together.

She smiles a litle and it's loopy. "And you kept it? That's awfully sentimental, for a tooth extraction. To not call it sweet."

Mae, really.

"I kept it because it looks like something out of a horror movie. I'm still impressed I got it out of there without losing my arm."

He keeps it because it's a reminder that he treats anyone, here, without discrimination. But the other part is also true.

"Did you at least wash it?" Boys and souvenirs and such. Nevermind her jaws of confetti that no-one is allowed to ever touch because she keeps them for a reason, a specific and good reason.

"No, I mounted it still bloody. Want me to show you my souvenirs from the rectal reclamations box?" The tooth goes back before she can give it a complex.

"Why does it always come back to that with you?!" Tossed arms in the air and all, although she's smiling. Kind of in the way one would smile when a cute boy's being a total nerd and you can't help but find it attractive. Like that.

Except the boy is right now a girl.

But she's cute, right?

"It's treasure trove. Where do you think I get all my watches?" and he'll just wait on a response to that one, kicking a leg back to push himself up from the chair.

"Anyway, I thought your plan for the evening was to get me wasted and take advantage."

No, he didn't. He hasn't even thought of this in any other terms than a friendly drink - why would he?

Yes, maybe, a little.

"I never mentioned the latter part," she corrects him, because of course she would. "It would be very rude of me to take advantage while you're inebriated. Not that it's not equally rude to wait for a curse to make mistletoe appear, but yes- the plan.

"Whenever you're ready."

He leans over to shut down the computer and glances across to his files - well, perhaps more to the crossword. Nothing that can't be picked up tomorr.w

"As I'll ever be."

And, because it's his office, he gets and holds the door.

"You know, I've never had a problem with rudeness."

"You would say that - men get away with rudeness far more easily," she answers, walking by him to exit the office. She doesn't make a comment of the crossword, because let him enjoy that on his free time just like she does.

Once out, she decides to put her jacket on and leave her hands free. Just in case and for no other reason. "Now look a bit more enthusiastic, I'm not taking you to the slaughter."

"I've never had a problem with rude women" he clarifies, and if there's something salacious in the tone - well, it sounds more innocent in a higher pitch.

Obligingly, she gets a beaming smile. Chase's forced grins look surprisingly alike on both male and female faces. "What's the appropriate level of enthusiasm? Do we link arms and skip?"

No, the innocence is just a myth invented by women to get away with being capable of as much salaciousness as men. She grins at the clarification, though; an advantage to him being in a female body right now is that he's less taller than usual and it's easy for her to reach out and pinch his cheeks at that forced grin.

"Relax, miss Colgate. We walk. But you are welcome to link arms if you want to."

"Well not if you're going to assault me." He makes a show of rubbing his cheek as the walk, until they're through reception and he needs the hand for pushing open the swing doors.

"Do you know how many people I had do that the other day? I'm getting a bruise."

He's so melodramatic about a little pinch to his cheek, until she remembers the old ladies and the pink handkerchief and pink seems to agree with you; by the time they're out through the swing doors, she feels slightly warm in the cheeks.

Doesn't stop her from putting up the sympathy act and patting his shoulder - at level! How novel! - before finally opening her mouth. "Want me to kiss it better, dearie?" Funny how she doesn't sound like an old caring granny.

"Any time you like." The response is smooth, coming back without the least hesitation - because he wouldn't hesitate any other day, and today he expects her to follow through even less. So why not flirt. It'll be a nice image to look back on later.

Well, he's in for a surprise; in hindsight, if he gets the idea that she does this because he's a woman, she'll just laugh so loudly when he opens up about it (if he does), but she'd get where he'd be coming from. Still - it's not like she doesn't like, or wouldn't want to. She likes him as her friend, too, and it's very strange to have a friend who can be a grown-up but act like a sassy teenager at the same time.

According to her most recent history, as he's neither in the closet nor secretly a demon, he'd not be her type at all. Except Mae has a type, and it goes like this: show some kindness, make her laugh, be a little cute. Check, check, check.

She makes him stop in the middle of the street, one hand on his arm, and tugs him back a bit before reaching up to cup his cheeks in both hands. "Come here, you traumatised baby." She leans up, and presses a kiss to the cheek she just pinched.

Let's be honest here, she doesn't have to lean up very far. Perhaps it's the speed, then, the relative lack of distance, that leaves Chase blinking for a moment after she drops back to her heels.

There's something a little maternal about the act which, Chase being Chase and internally a hideous mess of conflicting associations, he registers as interesting rather than chaste.

So he raises his eyebrows, the familiar sea-shade of his irises half way to being smothered by black. And nods. "Let me know if you ever want to smack me in the mouth."

Yes, yes, he has very pretty eyes, that hasn't changed. And how ironic is it that this very same day, when Carla leant in to 'tempt' her, Mae pulled away, but right now she feels tempted to not? She draws in breath through the space between her teeth and takes a step back.

"Would hate to ruin such a pretty mouth," she ends up answering, and it translates badly, so she shakes her head and hooks her arm through his. "Come on, let me buy you a drink for your troubles."

Edited 2013-05-28 20:56 (UTC)

Mae, Mae. Still such a tease. He hesitates a moment, trying to figure out if her small show of reluctance was just that - a show - but if nothing else the moment has passed. He lifts his arm to accommodate her elbow.

"See, this is the kind of thing I expected. So, where are we headed?"

"At the absence of my usual hunting grounds, we'll go to a bar." Because still no raves in the City, but she thinks slowly, she's outgrowing them. Better to a bar, she can actually order drinks legally now.

You're walking him through the square, Mae. A bar hardly narrows the options down - though you could drag him to a rave if you wanted, you'd just lose all respect for him if you let him dance there.

"I wonder how many of us are spending the day running up massive bar tabs under assumed names."

It's tempting.

She can tell - look at him, being all up for stirring up trouble. She grins a little, and bumps her hip against his as they walk.

"You might have it easier than I do at this point. Unless you want to hit a bar neither of us have before..."

"Oh they'd track you down in a minute." Little miss rose tinted follicles. And that in a city where pink isn't actually an impossible natural shade.

She does have a point, though, "Is there a bar you haven't hit before?"

Because if there's one he doesn't remember being in, it's a sure bet he has.

She stands out in a crowd, so what; sometimes it's not the best thing. Today, strangely enough, she'd like to be able to blend in.

"I don't go to the shadier part of town, but I don't really feel like looking over my shoulder tonight, so."

She'll just take Chase to the closest and most generic bar whose name we'll all pretend to know, because I don't know bars.

Lux it is. Less rough and ready than the Coliseum, more space than the Blue Light, and the piano player seems to have been fired in favour of a Bowie greatest hits CD. Ask nicely, and they'll even put umbrellas in your drinks.

"Which is the shadier part of town?" he asks, holding the door for her out of a habit way too ingrained for a curse to erase. "Underground?"

Yes. Lux it is. She knows how to ask nicely. They're getting those goddamn umbrellas. Or Mae will, whichever.

"So I've been told." It's cute that he can't brush off the gentlemanly behaviour - she tries to think if it's strange as well, but only ends it there: just cute. "Thanks."

"It's not so bad." He should know, he lived there a full month, way back when. He still keeps a weekly free clinic in one of the shadiest parts. "Half of what's down there's more afraid of us than we are of them. Of course, the other half will eat you as soon as look at you..."

It figures he'd be defending it with half the intention, having lived there - of some of that part of his life, she knows. "Honestly, that can be applied to any part of the City."

And doesn't she know it.

"Exactly. So, nothing to worry about. I'll go down with you sometime, if you like." And he'd pitch a fit if she went alone, but just ignore the hypocrite in the corner over here. Oh, there's a bar menu? Oh good.

She's been on far more dangerous dates. (And by dates, we mean of course friendly outings.) She knows social convention would have Mae sitting accross from him, but she takes a seat next to him because he's warm and tiny and pretty, and intimidates her sometimes but in ways that don't make her think she should run out the door.

Today, that sort of feeling is a blessing, apparently. "I suppose we could explore the underbelly of the City together one day. Everyone else seems to be doing it. What are you having?"

"Do they? I didn't realise it was a tourist trap."

It's news to him, although there's always the occasional heroic new arrival planning an expedition to the clock, something he can only ever roll his eyes at. There's no use explaining it's been done before. He runs a finger down the menu and stops somewhere familiar, leaning in to show her. Grey goose.

"Not so much a tourist trap as a hero's dream come true. And this place has been full of the type, mostly." She should talk. Of course there's a difference between the type of heroicism she does, and the 'I will fight even though I'm bleeding everywhere' type.

She leans in closer to look, pursing her lips. "You do realise you have to mix it with a soft drink, yes?

"Soft drink?" You'd think the concept was alien to him: that she'd just announced they were having moonjuice cocktails. "I was thinking some rocks and a lemon."

She smiles that smile that says she's pretty much going to get away with murder soon. "You said yes to girls' night out."

That smile is a dangerous thing, Mae. Chase's pout, however, is also something to be reckoned with. "We could just have bought juice boxes and sat in the park."

But sigh, she wins control of the drinks menu. "All right. Adulterate it in your preferred manner."

It'll be a deathmatch of expressions, then.

One she wins rather easily. "We can take juice boxes to the park when people aren't undergoing transformational crises." With a small laugh, she slides out of her chair, and picks the menu out of his hand. "I'll go order."

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[locked] i dare you not to quote cindy lauper

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