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 Posted: Wed Apr 28, 2010 7:11 pm
Things had been difficult recently, to say the least.
Not just work, though that had been fairly taxing as of late. There were just so many strange things going on. The top of that list would be getting attacked by a tiger monster, from which he now had to wear his arm in a sling. It would have been worse, of course, if Sailor Virgo had not saved him. Meeting her had at least been a perk, since she was nice and she answered his questions about the monsters, the youma, and told him about the negaverse and starseeds. He was still very much out of the loop, but he felt like he was beginning to understand some things.
And it was making his head hurt. He dedicated a lot of time to researching old newspaper articles from the library's archives, on top of the regular strain of library work, so his eyes felt like they were going to fall out of his head. Which was constantly aching.
Add to that the fact that some hoodlums nearly killed that poor girl by pushing over the back Reference shelves, which now all had to be replaced and all those hundreds of books fixed and reshelved. It was an impossibly large job, and exhausting just to think about.
Despite Edward's words, Tony had been sleeping at the library for the last two days. He would probably go back there after, but at the moment he was finally outside the place. He was at a sacred place, where he could relax and just focus on himself for a little while.
A wonderful, hole-in-the-wall dive bar. What more could he ask for? Already nursing his second Long Island Iced Tea, though granted they were served much smaller here than he was used to, he was feeling calmer. He was sitting at the bar, not really engaging any one in conversation, sticking out in his library-appropriate stuff clothes.
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Posted: Wed Apr 28, 2010 7:40 pm
Difficult might have been the word Suri would have used to describe her current situation. She could also use the word 'new'. Or 'strange'. Or 'mildly terrifying at times' (though that wasn't a single word). Either way, life as a Negaverse lieutenant was something she had been thrown into with great force, and Suri was the type of person who enjoyed taking baby steps, reading the theories and all the academic speculations before even thinking about getting her feet wet. Needless to say, between staying on the alert for any of the mysterious sailor senshi and looking for suitable starseed donors, Suri supposed that 'taxing' was another word she could use. Or 'tiring'. Or 'very tiring'. (It was a good thing Suri decided not to major in English.)
Maybe she was at this dump of a place to search for some dump of a person who didn't deserve to keep their starseed. Maybe she was just there for a drink. Either way, her face looked a little too young and her clothes a little too nice for the haggard settings around her, and she did her best not to turn her nose upwards in distaste at one of the patrons closer to the door who gave her a half-toothless grin as she walked by. Perhaps if he didn't need his teeth, he wouldn't need his starseed, either.
However, as Suri glanced further down the bar, she saw a familiar silhouette in the dim, smokey lighting, though in her current environment she couldn't quite place where she'd seen that goatee before. She approached cautiously, the heels of her boots clicking on the grimy tile, and she carefully glanced at the old leather seat before sat down in the stool next to him, almost imagining the dust sinking in to her dress slacks. She thought about asking to see the wine listing on first instinct, but looking at the place, decided it would be best to not disappoint herself, and with a polite voice she ordered her drink, folding her hands on the counter and trying not to examine the stains in the wood grain.
She glanced over at the man she recognized, the thoughts in her head churning. It took a moment, given the environment, but after a second look she identified the man: the librarian from her college research days...Anthony, that was his name. He had always been so professional in academic times, yet so personal in troubled ones, and it was for this reason that she smiled when the realization hit her. "Anthony Darrow, right? From the libary?" She laughed, beside herself. "You probably wouldn't remember me." It was something of a jump from the sweats-clad girl of her college days, hair undone by a night without sleep and a pile of books in front of her, but maybe he would recognize the star pins in her hair. Then again, maybe he wouldn't recognize her at all.
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Posted: Wed Apr 28, 2010 8:06 pm
The librarian lifted his head slightly when he heard heeled footsteps coming toward him, but he didn't look back. He was much to content to stay in his little world, sipping his strong drink, letting the stress of recent times melt away. Whoever it was, they would get bored and leave eventually, right?
Except she, and he could tell it was a she by the sound her shoes made, sat down next to him. He glanced up, almost expecting to see that terrible Carol from his work, but instead seeing a familiar face he couldn't place right away. He looked her over, a bit taken by surprise, because she remembered him by name.
"Ahh... yes," he said. That wasn't too weird. People recognized him from the library all the time. But his drink addled brain kicked into gear and his face lit up, a smile breaking the fairly serious and miserable expression he had been wearing, "Miss Suri Ellis! I thought you had moved or something! You used to come into the library so often, and then you just... vanished."
He shook his head, taking another look at her. She certainly looked different, though now he could recognize her better.
"Ah, what are you doing in here?" he asked, resisting the urge to tease her by asking if she was old enough, "what are you drinking? I have to say, this is more of a pleasant surprise than I expected in this dive." He glanced furtively at the bartender, who was pretending not to be offended. Of course, the toothless man near the door burped, so the bartender had to silently admit that the place was, in fact, very much a dive.
"How are you?" Tony went on, smiling broadly.
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Posted: Wed Apr 28, 2010 9:01 pm
"Graduated, actually," the woman responded with a nod, reaching for the blue fruity-looking drink the bartender slid her way. She stirred it twice with the flimsy-looking paper umbrella it came with, then discarded the trinket on a paper napkin, taking a sip with her eyes shut tight. The bartender, it seemed, was being a little generous on the vodka this evening. "There's not much to do at a library when one has to move to a new home and look for jobs." At the library, she'd probably mentioned her applications into the space program, but the whole thing was a year out of sight and out of mind, so she wasn't sure.
"It's a Blue Lagoon," she said with a sip, contemplating her other answer. After all, what she was doing in here, well, that was a good question. Suri couldn't very well tell him that she was on the hunt for starseeds. She took another light sip of her drink, then placed it on the bar, not wanting to rush herself into a drunken stupor. "I just--I needed to get out," she confessed, unsnapping the hair-pin from her bangs and repositioning it with deft hands. "I've been spending too much time at work--I teach at Crystal now, you see--and I felt like it was time I put myself in the company of people over the age of 18." This was at least partially true: even the Negaverse, with all of its powers and perks, had her jonesing for a crowd that wouldn't know who Justin Bieber was. It was interesting to note, however, that she'd never mentioned wanting to be a teacher when she was at college.
She shrugged, stirring her drink again. "It's taken some getting used to, but otherwise, it's been business as usual." Suri found herself wondering why she was sharing such a personal conversation with someone she hadn't seen in a year, but decided that Tony was just the sort of person she could afford to be personal with. He'd been something of a confidant in times past, but the ease with which she slipped back into the role of naive student was a bit startling, even to her. Nevertheless, she couldn't help but let her guard down, here in this dingy place. Maybe it was the alcohol already getting to her. Maybe she needed to get a few things off of her shoulders anyways.
"What about you?" Suri asked, looking up at Tony with a reserved smile. "How have you been? How's the library?"
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Posted: Wed Apr 28, 2010 9:15 pm
Tony listened to her, sipping at his drink, trying to keep focused on her and not that. Though, it was a very good, strong drink, so it was difficult to split his attention from it. He had, after all, come in here to get drunk, and not make conversation. So it was a bit of a stretch now to try. Not that he really minded it: at least it was company he liked and actually missed, rather than the normal unsavory bar crowd.
"Graduated already? Good heavens. Or maybe time is just slipping by for me, and I don't even noticed anymore. Everything is the same, hmmm." He took a bigger drink at that, though he hadn't been thinking about this subject. Was he bored of his job? His life? The monotony? He was certain that he wasn't, since he loved where he worked, but it did certainly get lonely. He needed to make more friends.
"I suppose you're right," he chuckled, when she said she didn't really have a reason to go to the library. He tried not to be offended by that, though, when he put the thought into those words in his head. "So you, uhm. The space thing? Did you ever put in for that? I didn't think teaching was your thing. In fact, I recall it my thing, but I never got there."
"Anyway, I'm fine. Not much to talk about here. Same old same old at the library. Got attacked by a tiger. Library shelves fell on a girl. You know. Normal stuff." He indicated to his arm in the sling, though he still held his glass in his hand so it was not much of a point.
He put the glass down, because it was near empty. "It's good to get out, huh?" he asked, itching at his shoulder absently. Sailor Virgo had told him off for it before, but he couldn't help it. The stitches itched. Nodding when the bartender offered to make him another drink, he looked at Suri again. It was clear he was here to get stone cold drunk. "Get away from all that... stress. Responsibility. Whatever else drags one down to a place like this."
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Posted: Wed Apr 28, 2010 10:08 pm
At the mention of the space program, Suri's expression darkened, and her drink suddenly became infinitely more interesting, stirring it with light, quick strokes. "The space thing fell through," she murmured grimly, taking a larger sip of her drink. "Not much room for astronauts with the economy and all." There. She could blame her burnt dreams like a bad economy like everyone else, as opposed to a bad eye exam. If she blamed it on the way dollars were moving, then she wouldn't have to admit that it was her own fault, in a way. With another sip of her drink, she found that she liked the idea even more.
She had to double-take at Anthony's idea of 'normal stuff'. "How on Earth did you get close enough to a tiger to get attacked by one?" All in all, he looked pretty good to have been potential tiger-food, but then again, it could have been months ago for all she knew. She wondered if it had been a youma he encountered, as they did come in all shapes and sizes, but then again, with everything going on in Destiny City these days, it could have been anything. Even amongst the Negaverse there were far too many questions unanswered.
She eyed his empty drink and took it as an unspoken challenge, and considering that Suri was nothing if not competitive, softly ordered a second round for herself. "Yeah. It's good to get away every so often," she reassured herself, nodding when the bartender brought them their drinks. Taking a sip, she noted that it didn't seem as strong, though that may have just been as a matter of comparison. "Otherwise, it's only a matter of time before you explode."
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Posted: Wed Apr 28, 2010 10:18 pm
Tony looked at her when she said it fell through, frowning apologetically. He hadn't meant to bring it up, if it was something that pained her. Blaming the alcohol for not noticing the sad air around the topic earlier, he shook his head and sighed. The action
"I'm sorry to hear that," he said at length, like it was a profound thought. "That's the way of things these days, huh? No one can afford anything. That's a shame, I always thought you were destined for it, with how much you studied and how smart you were."
His filter wasn't working, so honest thoughts just spilling from his mind and out his mouth with being checked first. If he had been a bit more sober, he would have realized that pointing out how good he thought she had been would just make the fact that she hadn't been able to pursue her goal even more painful.
He drank from his glass again before laughing at her question.
"It came right up to me," he said, "this big monster thing. Pulled the top off my car and got my shoulder. That's why I have to wear this thing. It was a couple of days ago now. This girl showed up and killed it with my car. So... now I walk everywhere. She told me all about it though."
He was a babbler when he was drunk, and he would have told her all about the negaverse and youma, not knowing she was well aware, had he not been distracted by her getting another drink. Was this a competition now? He didn't want to assume, but he took a big, steady drink of his glass just to test her.
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Posted: Wed Apr 28, 2010 11:15 pm
Suri let out a low whistle, remembering how her father used to do the same thing whenever met with something shocking or astounding. True, it wasn't normal for her to be this open, but then again, they were among friends, right? The way the toothless man kept grinning at her, they might as well have been. "Destiny City's just not safe anymore," she remarked, fiddling with the top button of her blouse. Did it get warmer in there, or was it just her? "You'd think that they'd get a tiger patrol out there or something..."
She saw his challenge, and with a gleam in her eye raised his steady drink with a solid gulp. It was mainly an act of bravado, since she knew good and well that she could only hold so much alcohol, but Suri hadn't been in an adequate competition in a while, and she was feeling pretty brave. "I mean, I'd be pretty nervous about being out at night if I didn't know the people I did." She rose her glass, but hesitated when she realized what she was revealing about herself. She hadn't said too much, at least not yet, but she couldn't risk saying anything more. Her identity as Zircon was too important to be revealed to some old librarian while she was drunk.
Nevertheless, now that the notion was on the table, she couldn't help but want to talk to him about it. He was her confidant, after all. "We've got a neighborhood watch thing in my apartment complex," she explained, hoping that he would buy the story. "People keep an eye out, watch for shady characters...Not like a call the cops thing, though. The tenants...they know how to show people who's boss." Suri had never been particularly good at metaphors, but this one was a little bit of a stretch, even for her. She leaned back and stretched, starting to feel a little light-headed.
"Have you ever felt like...that is to say, have you ever gotten the feeling that you're associating with the wrong crowd?" She looked around the room, reaching for her drink again. "Not like this crowd, these people are harmless, but...I don't know how to explain it. Powerful people, I guess. People who know what they want and aren't afraid to go after it." She gave him a thoughtful look, then sipped her drink again. "The crowd of people you'd want to be, but are just way out of your league." She sighed, shaking her head. "Heh. I'm not even sure what I'm asking anymore. Just ignore me."
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Posted: Wed Apr 28, 2010 11:27 pm
Tony looked at her, considering her for a very long moment. It was unclear what he was thinking about as he stared, but he smiled and returned to his drink, prompted to after she drank from hers. The game was on now, and he was going to give her a run for her money.
"Oh yeah? Who do you know that can keep you safe out here? This place is getting crazy, with all those monsters... uh... youma... whatever she called them, running around like they want, stealing things from people's hearts. You should be careful," he said, meaning it. He wasn't sober enough to hold his meaningful stare for long, though, chuckling.
"Neighborhood watch? I don't think that'll do any good. They'll all just watch you get eaten. And then get eaten. Or killed, you know, from the heart thing."
He was feeling good. It was nice to have another person to talk to, and not just his friend Edward. They were always sober, anyway, talking at lunch. This was different, and this kind of venting and conversation, uninhibited as it was, did him good. Or so he thought in the moment. It might not feel the same come morning, of course.
He regarded her, though, when she asked him about crowds. Laughing ruefully, he looked down at his glass, nodding slowly. "I suppose I do. When I was younger, I used to think I was untouchable. And I did some things I'm not proud of. But I certainly was then. The kicker is sometimes I still do things like that... and I don't know why." He didn't seem to want to ignore her, replying as if he hadn't heard that last part.
"Why? Do you feel like you're in that kind of a crowd?"
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Posted: Wed Apr 28, 2010 11:59 pm
Suri bristled at the mention of stealing someone's heart, considering it for a moment. All in all, the act of taking a person's starseed was amount to the same thing, if in a spiritual and not physical sense. Before that point, it hadn't really ever occurred to her that regular Destiny City dwellers might even be afraid of her actions in the Negaverse. More accurately, before that point she hadn't truly cared much, but with the way the alcohol was flowing she was having a moment of guilt for what her teammates had done, what she was preparing herself to do.
"...Yeah, kinda," she confessed in a moment of weakness, downing the last of her second drink. "The people I'm working with in this neighborhood watch, they've got it down to an art. It's like...an all out community thing. They expect a lot out of everyone, but the rewards are...amazing. More than I could have ever dreamed." She swirled her drink, her posture curling inwards. "True, their methods can be less than savory. But I just want a chance to be something more than myself, every so often. So I can feel like I was untouchable, too." Suri gave him a knowing look, then rubbed her temples, the buzz starting to affect her more.
"It's just that sometimes I don't know if I'm ready for the challenge. Worthy, even."
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Posted: Thu Apr 29, 2010 12:08 am
Tony watched her, finishing off his drink. Was that his third? He couldn't remember, but he was glad these were smaller than he had in the past. He nodded at the bartender, who went to make him up another one. By his count, that meant he was winning. Though, he wasn't thinking about their silent drinking contest at the moment.
"Worthy? That sounds like a gang mentality," he said thoughtfully, "a lot about pride and loyalty? I remember when I was younger, the group I hung around with... they weren't a gang, but they were a bad crowd. They ah, you know. They... we did a lot of stuff, that we thought was right or just... you know, fun or some kind of point of pride. Whatever. And I thought it was worth it then."
He shook his head, glad when he got a new drink.
"Now I can't stop regretting everything. But I can't stop doing those things whenever I get the impulse to. I don't know. I'm talking a lot about myself and that's not what I want to do. Look, I'm just saying, that sometimes something can feel amazing and worth being a part of, but as time goes on, you get a new perspective. Making choices is hard, because you don't know what will be right or wrong later, not just right now. Right?"
He really thought he was making sense, and this was all stuff he really needed to say.
"You should be careful. It would be a shame if this watch of yours led you down some place you don't want to go. You're supposed to go to space, right? I don't mean to tell you what to do but... you should be careful."
He clammed up after that, watching her, shaking his glass lightly so the ice would clink against the sides.
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Posted: Thu Apr 29, 2010 12:21 am
Suri wasn't so sure she felt like drinking another, but nevertheless motioned for her third with a silent wave, watching Anthony carefully as he spoke. The situation he spoke of felt so familiar, and as an outsider Suri would have shared his opinions on the subject: gang mentalities, dangerous, avoid at all costs in order to not become a sheep. But the Negaverse was different, something greater than all that. Suri wasn't becoming a sheep--she was becoming a leader. Something more than she could be otherwise. If it had been a gang-like thing, she would have known.
"Can't go to space," she murmured darkly, sampling her newest drink. It tasted weaker still. "I failed the final tests. My left eye's a little weak. Even if they went looking for a hundred astronauts, they wouldn't pick me." Something in her didn't like admitting to her own shortcomings, but that certain something had left about a glass and a half ago, and suddenly Suri felt much more open to talking about herself as if she had weaknesses.
"If I can't go to space, might as well do something here. Like the Neighborhood Watch." She frowned, a part of her aware that running a neighborhood watch wasn't fulfilling at all and that her story was starting to lose credence and sound like the metaphor that it was. "They've got great networking, you know. Neighborhood watches. They get you into all sorts of nifty jobs that are better than teaching." By the way she gulped her drink, she didn't seem quite convinced of the argument she was making.
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Posted: Thu Apr 29, 2010 12:30 am
Tony watched her, missing some signs in her body language because they were both too drunk to really be concrete in their conversation, anyway. He didn't miss her tone of voice, though, or the words she was actually saying. Which actually bummed him out.
"You failed? I-I'm sorry, I thought you said... but I guess you were... I didn't mean to make you talk..." he frowned, then turned to his drink for help. It didn't provide any, though it certainly felt nice, burning all the way down.
"Well, it's your decision, Suri," he said, offering her a lopsided smile, "if you want to do this Neighborhood Watch thing, go for it. But try and take care of yourself, huh? Maybe come by the library more often... tell me about what nifty jobs you can get. I know teaching isn't the most lucrative, but I always imagined it to be fulfilling. Maybe that's just me being romantic."
While Suri had been aiming for space, Tony wished he had aimed for the classroom. He felt like he had missed a great opportunity in his life, once he left school, to actually do what he really wanted to. Teach kids about legends and lore. Now, like many other things, it was just too late.
"Hey, you remember that time you were in the library past closing, and I didn't know you were in there, and I shut off all the lights and only found you because I was doing a final sweep of the place? I think that's important. You know? You were dedicated so much that you exhausted yourself, to that goal. It's not healthy, I mean, I don't advocate going out and working yourself ragged... but I think the important thing is finding something to be that... passionate about, again. Right? So if it's this thing, then try it. Or if it's something else, go for it. Just don't hold back or miss out."
He grinned broadly at her, lifting his glass in a small toast before he drank from it.
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Posted: Thu Apr 29, 2010 12:45 am
Listening to Tony's comforting words made Suri feel something like a child again, and she hunched her shoulders inwards as if she were trying to shy away from the pain of disappointment she had become all too familiar with. Nevertheless, she did take some comfort in having him speak to her like a fatherly figure, and in a way it gave her something to look at, a different way to consider things. Needless to say, it was difficult to look at things with a different perpective when your own was starting to blur.
She trusted the man and his words, and the more she listened the more she realized that he truly did understand where she was coming from, that perhaps despite her shitty metaphor he wasn't too far off from the point she had been trying to make. Hell, it wouldn't have been too far-fetched to think that perhaps he was a Negaverse agent as well, the both of them speaking to the other as if they were civilians. It wouldn't have been far-fetched at all, she decided: after all, if Serah Eos could be a Negaverse captain, then Hello Kitty might as well have been a youma. She sized him up, trying to imagine the man in a military outfit, but ultimately her imagination took her nowhere. With a grin that was a little too toothy for Suri, she took another drink.
"Yeah, I remember that. ******** principle, had me up all night trying to figure out something new to write about it." She sighed, stirring her drink. Those were the good old days, to think that the most important thing in one's life was a paper on a dead physicist. It hit her that she really didn't have anything to be passionate about, not since she'd graduated, and it hit her hard. She paused for a moment, then nodded sagely, as if it all made sense to her. As it stood, simple math probably didn't make sense to her anymore.
"To not missing out," she said cheerfully, raising her glass with his and taking another swig. When the room began to spin, she lowered it shakily, grasping the bar with a light giggle. "You're totally right, Tony. I need to...to...put my everything into this."
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Posted: Thu Apr 29, 2010 12:57 am
The drunken librarian nodded, smirking, when she joined him in a toast. He was glad to see she was letting her spirits lift a bit. All that heavy talk had been a bit of a buzz kill. Not that it wasn't meaningful, and he felt like he had done something important, even if it was completely unjustified.
Chances were good he wouldn't remember it in the morning, though.
He saw her sway and reached out to put his hand on her back gently, to brace her and make sure she didn't topple from the bar stool. Though, that would have been hilarious. He would have felt bad though, "I think," he said, nodding sagely, "that you probably already knew that, but were holding back. I think you can do whatever you put your head to, right? It's not a matter of bad eyes: you nearly got to space because you dedicated yourself to it. But maybe that eye test was telling you there's something else, and maybe this is it."
He beamed at her. He didn't know what he was supporting, though in his head he was pretty much telling her to go join a bunch of gang-like hooligans like the ones he used to run with. It had been fulfilling, in a way, back then. That was why he still couldn't shake those habits, he told himself, because it had been the only thing he was really good at, and really felt like he belonged to.
Was that a good thing?
He couldn't tell any more, but he liked being excited and he liked cheering her on, so he didn't think about it too deeply.
"I also think you might be a wee bit drunk," he said, grinning at the way she was gripping the bar.
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