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 Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2009 8:11 pm
"I'm doing French," he said, as though this hadn't been painfully obvious. "Italian. Mum wanted me to do Dutch -- she speaks Dutch to me at home -- don't like it so much; I do romance languages, petit." (Again the waggling eyebrows.)
The paper trash was wadded up and put away. The line for Starbucks proved to be impossibly long; so they waited outside and leant against the wall still warm from the daylight, and Casca eased a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. They didn't seem to be normal cigarettes; they were wrapped in dark brown paper, and he was scuffling for a lighter. (It was amazing that he could keep anything in his pockets; his skinny jeans looked slightly spraypainted on.) "Want one?" he said. "It's cloves."
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Posted: Fri Mar 20, 2009 8:34 pm
Ophelia really had no idea what the difference between a 'cloves' cigarette and a normal cigarette was, even if they did look a bit odd. She shook her head.
"I heard they're really unhealthy," she said. Her father didn't smoke, and had given her warnings against it on numerous occasions.
The line inched forward. The heat from the day was starting to dissipate and the air was growing a bit chill. Ophelia shivered and tried to shrug it off nonchalantly. She hadn't thought to bring a jacket.
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Posted: Fri Mar 20, 2009 8:52 pm
"So's my secondhand smoke," said Casca with not even a little bit of shame, and lit up; he stuck the funny black cigarette in his mouth as they waited in the crawling line, obviously wanting to get some time in with it before he was forced to put it out when they went inside. The smoke from it had a thin, herbal scent -- fragrant, it was cloves.
He looked at Ophelia shivering and goosepimpled. Then he went back to his cigarette, breathing out the smoke in curls -- then he sighed and unfolded one wing to awkwardly snake around her like a blanket. The inner leathery skin of his wing was surprisingly warm; it shut out the cold. "Darlin'," he said, "it's called a sweater, an amazing new invention."
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Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2009 5:40 am
"It was a lot warmer earlier," retorted Ophelia, but she made no effort to shake off the wing. It was surprisingly warm, but once she thought about it, it sort of made sense, remembering her biology classes this semester. Anything that thin would have to have blood vessels very close to the surface.
The smoke was fragrant, but it still didn't make her want a cigarette. She almost had to wonder where Casca had had time to pick up the habit - he had grown more recently than she had. He must have.
They advanced in line a bit, getting closer to the door. She peered ahead.
"It looks like they've only got two people working behind the counter! This is kind of ridiculous."
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Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2009 9:11 pm
When they finally stepped through the threshold the cigarette got flicked into the bin. The line plodded on with the two harrassed teenage baristas who appeared to be the only people on duty during evening rush hour; the girl behind the counter stared a little when Casca machine-gunned off his order that seemed to be incredibly specific on heat, amount of foam, soy milk and shot content.
They stood outside with their oversized cups of coffee afterwards (Casca's was worrisomely large), doing what teenagers did best -- nothing at all, chilling at random.
"So," he said. "Yeah." (This was adequate teenspeak.)
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Posted: Wed Mar 25, 2009 3:43 am
Ophelia rocked back and forth on and off the balls of her feet and blew on her mocha, waiting for it to cool. "Yeah," she empathized.
The coffee finally cooled and she took a few sips of it. Good stuff.
"So, er, this was fun," she said, turning her head to smile at him.
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Posted: Wed Apr 01, 2009 4:50 pm
"Diverting intermission on the road to the grave," agreed Casca, who was sipping his own coffee with every sign of relief. "Should do it again if we're both stuck at school late hours. Not that you'll be. Mum doesn't know the meaning of, just finish the work at home. Le sigh."
He drank the coffee down without savouring it after the initial steps -- just pouring it wholesale down his throat, then crumpling it up and tossing it in the trash. "Guess we'd better get back," he said.
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Posted: Wed Apr 01, 2009 7:59 pm
Ophelia attempted to drink as much of her drink in as little time as possible, and burned the roof of her mouth in the process, even though it was significantly cooler than it had been. She tossed her empty cup as well, but could not manage the act of crumpling it up and consequently did not even try to be that badass.
"I wouldn't say I'll never be stuck late again," she said. "The elementary art kids make a lot of messes. I think they do it just to bother my dad, too."
She glanced down at her watch, and nodded in agreement.
"I guess we'd better."
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Posted: Thu Apr 02, 2009 6:43 pm
"Happy ending for one and all," said Casca, and taking her arm chivalrously, they set off back for the parking lot.
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