She was bothered by people leaving shopping carts out in the middle of the parking lot (not that she owned a car or anything). She was bothered by people who felt so entitled that even the underside of chair arms and table tops were ideal places to put their wadded up, nasty old him at. She was bothered by soda that had gone flat, she was bothered by the outrageous price of everything in general. She was even bothered by the sound of metal silverware as it tinked against porcelain plates or bowls, regardless of whether she was at home or out eating with her mother.
Okay, so there were a lot of things that bothered Beatrice Kellye but at the current moment, her biggest bother had to do with the fact that she was currently being severely underpaid by her job (she was two quarters above minimum wage and was late every other day, her boss would argue) and that her efforts to make money doing her “side job” had recently been thwarted by someone at least twice her age and half her intelligence. Heck, half his brain was probably mush from all that gel in his hair.
Therefore, she felt she was within her rights to camp out at the same spot she'd met him in the last time, simply in hopes of running into the old greaseball once again, so she could break his cane and half and take whatever was in his wallet as her victory prize.
Ordinarily, Lovejoy wasn't a very violent person but this old Negageezer had definitely brought out a more vicious side of her. A vicious side that she was gonna satisfy when the smarmy schmuck decided to finally stroll along her way.
______
Alabaster was bothered by a lot of things.
He was bothered by the fact that Solas had basically taken away his credit card because he kept buying suits on the company card even though they were specifically for the company, Solas. He was bothered by the fact that the last time he’d gone to that little coffee shop on third street by the office, they’d told him the cappuccino machine was broken and he couldn’t get his double swirl macchiato with an extra shot of whipped cream like he normally did.He was bothered by the fact that Ashley still existed and was making his life a confusing tangle and also that he had yet to strangle him. He was bothered by the fact that Rob wouldn’t let him get an office alpaca.
But he was most bothered by the fact that that black and white senshi had called him old.
He wasn’t old. He was in his prime. Thirtysomething (he coughed in his mind) wasn’t a bad age. He was at the age where most people did something with their lives, and he had totally done something with his life. He was a damn good lawyer and a damn good Lieutenant and so that totally overrode the fact that he was now not just thirty, but past thirty.
Alabaster went down the street with his cane clicking on the pavement, still lost in thought. And he’d forgotten to pay attention to power signatures, whoops.
______
She heard the clicking before she felt the tingle and immediately, Lovejoy knew it was him.
There was no mistaking the combination as it continued to go click, click, click down the sidewalk, the aura growing stronger as the clicking grew louder. What pretentious douchebaggery was it to annoy people with a cane? It wasn’t as if he walked funny - it was clearly just there as a fashion accessory (and a dumb one at that).
Peering down from up above, hands squeezed the edge of the bar’s roof with excitement as she recognized the blonde’s gelled hair from up above. Sure enough, the Lieutenant was making his rounds, looking as pompous as a peacock as she’d seen him the last time.
He wasn’t gonna be pompous for long. Nor was he gonna have any money, by the time she was through with him!
Quietly, Lovejoy whispered her attack as she attempted to align it with his pathway.
“Confusion!”
______
Alabaster, in spite of all of his bothers, had been having at least a decent day, even if his attempts at getting Rob to listen to him via multiple text messages about cute alpacas had only ended with Rob sending him a picture of his middle finger. But other than that, he’d at least gathered some energy, and this was making him feel very proud of himself, even though he was still resisting the urge to go seek out that girl that had called him old and hit her with his cane, because that was what mature people did in these sorts of situations.
As it turned out, he didn’t have to go that far at all to find her.
Alabaster rounded a corner, passing by a dark alleyway, and something whispered over him, settling down. His steps slowed, fancy shoes coming to a stop, and then he was peering curiously around at his surroundings, trying to figure out what he was doing here in the first place. What had he just been thinking about?
Goats, maybe. Or possibly cookies. He couldn’t remember which, but instead stood there, frowning at the sidewalk, one hand on his cane, the other raised to his jawline, absently rubbing as he tried to make sense of the strange, swirly thoughts currently floating around in his mind.
Where had he been going again?
______
Sailing down, down, down, Lovejoy wasted no time landing directly behind the confused looking Negaverse agent as her frilly dress attempted to settle down after her. Jumping while in fancy clothes was a bigger pain in the rump than she’d care to admit but her focus wasn’t on wardrobe malfunctions - no - her focus was on the thing that had tripped her up the last time they’d interacted. Grabby little hands reached out to snatch away the cane from the Lieutenant’s grip, her grin widening as she cooed out,
“Found yaaaa~”
Nose wrinkling, she yanked on the so-called “weapon”, trying to wrench it free. For an old guy, he had a pretty decent grip and it was disappointingly more difficult than expected.
“Give me that!!!”
Grabbing it away, she almost stumbled over her own feet as she moved to take several steps back, adding distance between the two of them. One hand dangled the cane from a distance, as if tempting an alpaca with a carrot.
“If you want your cane back, old man…. then… then you’re gonna have to give me your wallet!!!”
There. That was how you struck a deal… right?
______
He heard a sound from behind; a rustle of clothes and a pair of footsteps, and then someone was grabbing at his cane, trying to snatch it out of his hands. Alabaster staggered a little, twisting around, his eyes wide, and instinctively he held on tighter, because that was what you did when someone was trying to take something from you, even if he had no idea why she was trying to take his cane from him. Wasn’t there some sort of rule about trying to take canes from oldER people (because he definitely wasn’t OLD)???
“Hey!”
Alabaster tugged hard, and the girl went stumbling back - although his plan had failed, because now his hands were empty, and she was holding his cane with a triumphant look in her eyes that he had no idea how to interpret.
“Old man?” he repeated, and in spite of the fact that he had no clue what was going on at all, there was still a definite sense of outrage that she had just called him an old man.
But maybe he should just give her his wallet. Just to be safe.
Alabaster reached into his pocket, pulled it out, and squinted at it. “What if I just gave you like….here - “
He extracted all the bills in a wad of cash and held it out to her. He had no idea how much it all added up to, but maybe it was a lot. Maybe she’d give his cane back.
“Can I have my stuff back now? Uh? Miss?”
______
Oh.
My.
God.
Dark eyes grew huge as she saw the giant wad of cash being offered out to her, just like that. How in the world she’d managed to strike it big, she didn’t know but… heck, she wasn’t about to waste any more time, not when she had a small window of opportunity opening up for her right here and now.
Her hand reached out for the money and she paused as a wicked idea came to mind.
Grabbing both ends of the cane, she lifted her knee up and brought the stick down across the surface, splitting the weapon into two smaller sticks with an ugly break down the center. It smarted - a lot - which was a side effect they never showed in the movies but as far as LJ was concerned, it was totally worth it.
“For that much money, I’d better give you two for one!”
The cane’s fragments were tossed at his feet while the senshi snatched the wad of cash from his outstretched hand. Feet were already taking off in the opposite direction, boots stomping across the sidewalk as she ran like a bat out of hell to get away from him before the magic had time to wear off.
Man -- even if the wad was nothing but fives and ones, it was definitely gonna be enough to get her a decent shopping spree at … well, at least the dollar store!!!!
______
This was totally going to work. This was how negotiations always worked, wasn’t it? You offered something to someone in exchange for something else and voila, everything was fine and dandy and great. You got what you wanted, and they got what they wanted, and everyone went home happy.
At least in some other world. Not Alabaster’s world.
There was a terrible crack and then his cane was on the ground, and Alabaster was back to doing his impression of The Scream painting that he had done when Solas had told him he couldn’t use the company credit card to buy his suits anymore, even if he couldn’t understand that the two were related. The girl had grabbed the money from his hand and then she was gone in a flash, leaving him standing there staring.
Slowly he bent and picked up the two fragments. Maybe she had just really needed the money. Maybe she just was desperate and that was why she had broken his cane.
He turned and walked away.
Twenty seconds later, the magic finally wore off. Again.
“FOR THE LOVE OF - “
[Fin]
