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BlackFireKitsune Vice Captain
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 Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2011 4:08 pm
When Aulus stood she did as well, taking a cursory glance around the area. "I haven't been before before either, so I'm not really sure," she admitted with a disapproving frown. She didn't like to not know things, and that included where things were. "Oh yes, there's all sorts of marketing tricks everywhere to try and maximize profits and fatten up their wallets." Disgusting. Then again it wasn't her place to talk about, considering her own job. Oh well. "There's probably a map somewhere close by, we can take a look at that and see if we can't find a cheap place that isn't too far." Even if his leg was feeling better, she didn't think he'd want to walk all the way across the mall and back with how his leg felt. ...on that topic, why had he hurt it so badly? Maybe she could try and figure that out... "How did you hurt your leg, by the way? Just.. land on it wrong, or something?" She asked while violet eyes scanned the store names above doors on either side of them, trying to see if there was one she recognized. Nothing yet.
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Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2011 4:17 pm
Giving a vague humph Aulus set off beside the purple-eyed woman, still limping noticeably but not as much as he had been before. What ought he to tell her? He hadn't cared about letting her know about his eye, because that wasn't a weakness; the vision might not quite be 20:20 but it was still pretty good... No. He wasn't going to explain this one; she could tell it was bothering him at the moment, but there was no need to let her know that it was a recurring issue when he still didn't know whether or not she was out to hurt him.
"Just landed wrong and pulled the muscle," he said eventually, "it'll get better soon enough I expect." Had he said anything to her earlier that might hint he was familiar with how long it took to stop bothering him, thus also hinting that it was something he was used to? Damn, he couldn't remember. He hoped not; if she was out to hurt him she'd have been listening for things like that... Why would she want to hurt him? What could she possibly gain? She hadn't asked him about any pokemon he had, so she probably wasn't interested in Tortie... Unless she was just being smart and subtle. Poker. Remember the poker.
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BlackFireKitsune Vice Captain
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Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2011 4:41 pm
The answer he supplied was regarded with complete suspicion and, for the moment, filed away to prove or disprove later. She would have plenty of time while they looked for dry, non-chocolatey clothes to ask innocent questions to see if this was true or not. Pulled muscles, in her experience, were fine after several minutes, and the way he limped to the bench and then to the bathroom and back, and was still limping... No, there had to be more to it. But for now, after his answer she nodded with a non-committal "alright."
It only took a few minutes of walking before a display appeared from behind a large decorative plant, containing several advertisements on most sides and a map on just one. With an "ah" she jogged over to it, hoping Aulus would take his time getting over there but she wanted to check it out as soon as possible. She began studying the map, trying to find a decent clothes store that she'd heard of, or at least find one that looked like it might possibly perhaps be relatively cheap... It was times like these she wished she knew more about the individual stores.
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Posted: Sun Feb 20, 2011 7:56 am
What? Why was she running off over... over there... Damn. Nice arse... Oh, she'd found a map. Shaking himself mentally - last thing he needed was to distract himself with her a**...ets - Aulus sauntered over to join her, his leg still protesting but slowly easing off into a background grumble of displeasure now. "Try looking for something without curly lettering," he suggested with a grimace of disapproval, "curly lettering always adds an extra zero or two onto any price."
It was amazing what some people would pay to have a name stamped onto their clothes. Disgusting. People were so shallow, so mindless, so easily led. Tell them that wearing these clothes would make them as beautiful as the celebrities who were paid thousands to wear them in their adverts, and wallets would open before you could say 'deluded idiots'. Why did people have to act that way? Where were the people who saw what really mattered?... And what was it that really mattered? Love? True friendship? Those things were as false as famous people wearing costly clothes in costly adverts, right? Right. Believing them made you vulnerable, and sooner or later that person you loved would probably stab you in the back. It wasn't worth taking the risk; stick with pokemon, at least most of them were basically decent once you got to know them.
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BlackFireKitsune Vice Captain
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Posted: Sun Feb 20, 2011 9:29 am
While Claire was too busy studying the map to notice just exactly where Aulus' eyes were, Zeus didn't miss it - though he had no idea why he wanted to stare there. Humans... With a snort he dashed past the scarred man and jumped onto his trainer's pant leg, and proceeded to climb up her side. Upon reaching her hand she grabbed his arm and hoisted him up the rest of the way to her shoulder so she wouldn't have to deal with him tugging down her shirt. She had no intentions of revealing any skin in that area.
When her company arrived next to her she nodded in response, pointing to a few store names on the board. "These seem promising." Didn't look too fancy and one or two of them she'd vaguely heard of, not like the giant brand name stores, so hopefully they wouldn't be too expensive. Or too far. "This one doesn't look too far from here," she suggested after a moment, pointing to one specific one on the map. Even if his leg was feeling better, she wanted to get something to change into as quickly as possible.
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Posted: Sun Feb 20, 2011 9:38 am
A shrug of his broad shoulders expressed the gist of Aulus' opinion, but he added; "Whatever, looks fine," for clarity's sake. It was a shop he vaguely recognised, but didn't think he'd ever been into before. Being a sensible man not swayed by shiny adverts, he got most of his clothes from military surplus stores. Just not his boots. His boots were special. They were probably a stupid extravagance, knee high leather and buckled all the way up, but he liked them. They made a statement. It wasn't the same as buying designer brands in the least. Right.
"Let's go then," Aulus said decisively, "I'm getting sodding cold standing around in this wet shirt." Taking a last glance at the map he off in the direction of the shop they'd decided on, leaving Lucy to either follow him or walk along beside him. In front of him would be favourite... No! No asset staring. That was definitely off the cards... Unless she decided to run again; he was only human after all.
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BlackFireKitsune Vice Captain
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Posted: Sun Feb 20, 2011 10:26 am
Thankfully the one she'd pointed out was fine by him - she had no desire to stand there staring at the map for ten minutes straight trying to find one acceptable by his standards - so she remained an extra moment or two to double-check its location and how to get there. Getting lost in the mall was definitely not on her list of things to do today.
She caught up with him after a moment and jogging a few paces, Zeus clinging to her shoulder and attempting to avoid falling off, and her violet eyes scanned the store names once again. "I don't blame you," she replied with a light snort. "I don't exactly like smelling like chocolate, either." Though she wasn't nearly as bad off as he was, thankfully. It had been quite a while since she'd bought clothes, now that she thought about it... Not since before she'd left Galactic.
Her eyes locked onto the store name with a quiet "ah" before she jogged over to it, eager to get out of these chocolatey clothes. She did not like smelling of chocolate. Flowers or something, sure, but chocolate? Gross.
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Posted: Sun Feb 20, 2011 10:40 am
Right then. Feeling extremely conspicuous - and extremely annoyed about feeling extremely conspicuous - Aulus trailed after Lucy, trying not to be too distracted by her assets this time. Had she really intended to say she was going to buy stuff for him? He didn't really want her to, and he certainly didn't want to assume he thought she meant to if she didn't...
Egh.
Shoppers.
Shoppers everywhere.
Aulus treated the whole world to a death glare as he stepped into the shop and began scanning for something that he wouldn't mind being seen dead in or, more to the point, being seen alive in; once you were dead you didn't have to listen to people sniggering about your pink shirt.
Pink, purple, floral print - were these really then men's shirts? - green, red... Ah. Black. It was a long-sleeved button down thing, which was not his usual style, but it was at least plain and lacking in frills or lace or some other prissy s**t. There were a good few black t-shirts about too, but all of them either had some kind of picture on them, or 'witty' quotes that made him want to pick the designer up by the front of their pretentious little top and give them a thorough shake until some sense was rattled into their head.
Fine, the black thing looked best; after grabbing a couple of sizes to try on later he began the hunt for trousers; there had to be some that weren't either designed to have the crotch around you knees, scribbled on, or so tight they looked as though you'd just put latex paint on your legs and called it a day.
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BlackFireKitsune Vice Captain
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Posted: Sun Feb 20, 2011 11:12 am
As Aulus wandered off to find clothes for himself, Lucy did as well, grimacing at some of the frilly or extremely revealing clothing. Seriously, some of these should be considered lingerie, not something you could wear out in public. Then again, some people did have strange tastes and liked to flaunt themselves to the point of indecency, (usually) unfortunately for everyone else.
She was having problems similar to Aulus in that most of the t-shirts (which were far too small looking to fit anyone besides an adolescent girl) had pictures or stupid quotes. Finally she managed to locate a decent white top - a blouse of some sort, probably, she never really knew the differences between the different names - that looked like it would hang around the edge of her shoulders. She could probably put it fully on one shoulder and have it completely hang off the other, but that was out of the question. She'd have to deal with showing more shoulder than she wanted. Not like the t-shirts were much better, anyway...
After grabbing two different sizes to try on, she started looking for pants as well. Something light so it wasn't an incredibly stark contrast to the white shirt... Ah, those weren't too bad. Picking out a pair of jeans in a very light blue that faded to a little darker shade at the bottoms, she held them up to her waist with an idle humm of indecision. They didn't look too bad.. But she had no intentions of standing there looking for clothes forever, so she grabbed a couple sizes before glancing around for where they hid the fitting rooms. They had to be around there somewhere...
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Posted: Sun Feb 20, 2011 11:41 am
Aulus had been considering a pair of jeans too until he remembered pockets. Pockets. He had six pockets on the trousers he was wearing, all of them were in use, and four of them (the four on the front) were pretty sizable. There was no way he'd be able to get all of his stuff into the pockets of jeans, so those were dismissed. Before long he discovered another candidate; they were black, and suitability pocketed. He quickly discovered, however, that there was a skull printed onto a different piece of fabric and stitched onto the right back pocket.
Aulus glared at the skull, and the skull seemed to glare back. 'If you wear me,' it seemed to snigger, 'you'll look like a sad fourteen year old who write lots of poetry with words like eternal, heart, black, pain, and betrayal, but hey! At least you'll be able to carry all your stuff, loser.'
Aulus continued to glare for a few moments before resolving to tear the terrible thing off as soon as possible and picking up another size just in case before heading off to the fitting rooms. There was a queue outside all of the booths, but he solved that by stepping in front of some floppy-haired kids and giving them a look that plainly said either 'Go ahead, make my day' or 'Are you feeling lucky punk'; possibly both. They didn't try to make him get to the back of the line.
Before too long a young woman stepped out of the room he was waiting for, and then hastily stepped out of his way. Giving a humph of satisfaction, Aulus stepped inside and closed the door. It didn't take him too long to figure out which was the best size of each item, or to figure out that he did indeed look like a complete twerp with that skull on his arse; that definitely had to go, preferably before Lucy saw it, or anyone else for that matter.
Changing back into his soggy, chocolaty clothes with a slight grimace, Aulus stepped out of the changing room and made for the checkout. There was a queue here too, but he didn't jump it this time; he felt he ought to wait for Lucy to appear just in case she was going to insist on paying for him. He might be a proud man, but he was also currently a man on a rather limited budget; if she really was going to insist on it then he wasn't going to argue.
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BlackFireKitsune Vice Captain
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Posted: Sun Feb 20, 2011 1:33 pm
Thankfully Lucy had much better luck finding pants than Aulus did, as well as finding a changing room a little out of the way with a much shorter line outside it. Not too long after her company had gotten in line at the register, she joined him and shifted the articles of clothing in her arms. "Not too bad, I suppose," she commented absently, noting the skull on the pants he'd picked out and tried her very best not to show that she'd noticed, or how amused by it she was. "Could've been better, of course, but beggars can't be choosers, as the saying goes." Actually it wasn't too bad - she really liked the top she'd found, though of course she'd never admit it.
Zeus prodded his trainer's shoulder to get her attention before pointing at his mouth with a distressed "chu." His response was a glare. "Don't you dare tell me you're hungry you little pig," she chided him, trying to ignore him. "You're full of chocolate and you'll get nothing else until later." And then no chocolate for a month. A small sigh escaped her as she tried to recall if she ever outright said she would pay for his clothes - she couldn't remember if she had or not, so maybe she'd better comment on it so he knew. Part of her wondered if he would be to into the Mr. Tough Guy act to accept this. "Yours aren't too expensive, are they? I don't need to break my wallet in one day." Not that she had to really count her pennies - she hadn't bought much at all since she'd arrived, so her paychecks had just been adding up. Maybe she'd buy herself something nice soon.
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Posted: Sun Feb 20, 2011 1:39 pm
Urk. Dilemma. Dilemma. Urk. She was sort of saying she would now, wasn't she? He thought so. Yes. It sounded like it... Fine. He didn't have that much money left, and the last thing he wanted to have to do was call his parents and ask them to bail him out. He really needed to find a way to make money soon. "No," Aulus responded after only a brief pause, "the trousers were even on sale..."
Should he hand them to her or what? He probably looked like an idiot at the moment. Anyone who smirked at him was going to get a fist in the face. Stupid skull trousers, and letting somebody else buy them for him, somebody a causal observer might think was his girlfriend. Still. Fine. Whatever. Maybe it was his birthday, or maybe she owed him clothes because he'd ruined his saving her pikachu from death by chocolate. Let them think what they wanted. He didn't care. Not a bit. Right.
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BlackFireKitsune Vice Captain
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Posted: Sun Feb 20, 2011 2:53 pm
Well well - Mr. Tough Guy sounded a bit deflated, didn't he? The thought elicited a small hum of amusement from the young woman, but she figured - no, it was obvious - that he wouldn't appreciate anything of the sort. "Oh, that's good," because she hadn't actually noticed if the clothes she'd picked out were on sale or not. That probably would have been a good thing to notice, but they weren't too expensive anyway, so it didn't matter too much. "Sorry again for the trouble," she said as one hand reached up to lightly flick the Pikachu's ear. "I really should get a leash for the little devil." Despite her behavior towards the trouble-making electric-type, her voice held a mildly affectionate tone.
Despite the length of the line the pair wouldn't need to wait too long, as it was soon their turn. The young, way-too-feminine (in Claire's opinion) cashier brushed dyed blond hair from her heavily make-up'd face as she offered a generic store greeting around her bubblegum, pulling the clothes over to scan them as Claire put them down. Without waiting for Aulus to put his down she quickly but carefully pulled them from him and set them down as well, and within moments the price was displayed. The girl looked up after popping her gum again with every intention of boredly announcing the price, but nearly jumped out of her shoes when she saw the two customers. It was exceedingly clear that she had never seen someone with a face like that before and that her dear mommy had never taught her not to stare.
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Posted: Sun Feb 20, 2011 3:05 pm
"Mmfh, well," Aulus grunted vaguely and shrugged his powerful shoulders, "it didn't kill me. Quite. This makes us even, anyway." He didn't like people owing him any more than he liked owing. What was that phrase? Neither a lender nor a borrower be? Or was it the other way around? Still, whatever, the point was that he agreed with the sentiment; beholden to nobody, and nobody beholden to him...
Hu.
Of course.
At the bimbo's intake of breath and subsequent gawping, Aulus shifted his expression to a snarl. The scar that he knew would be holding her attention twisted the expression somewhat, making it all the more intimidating, disquieting even. He was used to people reacting like this by now, but that didn't mean he enjoyed it... Well he did. Of course he did. It meant that people were afraid of him and that was what he wanted. He liked scaring them, on the whole. Part of him might not want things that way, but he knew it was a stupid, idealistic part that wanted a lot of things he couldn't have. Better to ignore it and take a bit of satisfaction in making the idiots who did react this way quake in their impractical high-heeled shoes than to shy away in shame. This was the way he looked, and they just had to sodding well deal with that.
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BlackFireKitsune Vice Captain
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Posted: Sun Feb 20, 2011 3:25 pm
Claire had pulled out a wallet from her pocket and was busy counting bills, so she missed the cashier's initial reaction. The sudden twisting of Aulus' expression was noted out of the corner of her eye and made her look up with a mild curiosity, only to find the poor girl looking even more terrified than she had a moment ago, clearly certain this man was a mass murderer and was going to kill her at any moment.
She was distracted by a sudden clatter as a plastic card holder fell off the higher portion of the counter and bounced off the register, and the cards it held spilled all over the counter and around her shoes.
'Lucy' lowered her hand from where the holder had been sitting until just a moment ago, peering at the girl innocently. "It's rude to stare, you know." At least it had gotten her attention for the moment. ...oh, but there it went again. While distressed by this event, the girl fumbled with the cards on the counter with her pouty lips parted, obviously still too stupid to get the hint. Clearly she needed to take extra measures to secure the girl's attention for more than half a second. What was she, a goldfish? "How much did you say -- oops," she said and paused after knocking over a small, clear plastic display full of brochures for something largely unimportant. That bit of plastic clattered to the floor as well, and its contents fluttered to the ground all around it. "How clumsy of me, so sorry about that," despite apologizing with her words, her tone was laced with sarcasm and her unamused, displeased expression was fixed on the cashier, who looked at her suddenly. Finally. Effing little... "How much did you say it was?" She asked innocently, eyebrows raising expectantly in an 'I'm waiting' expression. The girl managed to mumble a response and the black-haired woman handed her several bills without glancing at her wallet. Of course she already knew the price, but it was hard to pay for something when the cashier was staring rudely at the person next to her.
The register pinged, change clinked around and was placed into Claire's outstretched hand as she regarded the young girl with slightly narrowed violet eyes. It wasn't a habitual practice to harass cashiers in such a way, but it was sort of necessary in this instance. The clothes were stuffed into two bags and quickly shoved toward each of them, and Claire took hers with a more positive expression. Took long enough. "Ah, thanks so much," she said, derision evident in her tone as she grabbed her bag and turned to leave, though did wait for Aulus. Even if they were even now, she wasn't going to just suddenly snub him and leave. She wasn't that rude.
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